GROWING GOLD; 



ft. 

A TREATISE ON THE ^ 



CULTIVATION OF BRITISH OAK. 



" How I love, in the Forest, to gaze on the Oak 
Till a feeling of grandeur and might fills my soul. 

And I thrill just as if a deep oracle spoke, 

" Lo ! the Father of Ships that no foe can control ! " 

Feist. 



BY JAMES ^SAWYER. 



LONDON : 

SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL, STATIONERS' COURT; 

AND 

RIDGEWAY, PICCADILLY. 
1838. 



TO THE 

RIGHT HONORABLE EARL SPENCER, 

PRESIDENT OF THE 

ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION; 

AND TO ITS 

DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS. 



My Lords and Gentlemen, 

As you have invited communi- 
cations on the Cultivation of Timber, SfC, I take 
the liberty of inscribing this little work to your 
society ; and with every sentiment of profound 
respect, 

I have the honor to be, 

My Lords and Gentlemen, 
Your most obedient, humble Servant, 
JAMES SAWYER. 



ERRATUM. 

Page 102, line 7, for "growing timber," read "setting out young trees." 



INTRODUCTION, 



" The aggrandizement and security of the powers of 
one's own country is the duty of every man,"* says the 
illustrious " Hero of a Hundred Fights." The posses- 
sion of a large store of timber, and of trees growing to 
timber, on the British Isles, is unquestionably now, as 
heretofore, necessary to the nation to maintain its naval 
and commercial power, prosperity and security. 

Russia and the United States possess vast power to 
annoy our timber trade, and to interpose the most 
serious obstacles to it in the Baltic and Gulf of St. 
Lawrence ; and were such power to be exercised 
simultaneously, it is impossible to calculate the amount 
of inconvenience and mischief that would ensue. 
Believing the prevailing system of planting trees and 
managing timber to be erroneous, and likely ultimately 

* Duke of Wellington's Despatches, end of Vol. 10. 



vi 



INTRODUCTION. 



to produce disastrous consequences to the community 
if no exertion be made to remedy the evil, I have 
considered it an imperative duty to volunteer my 
services. I am borne out in the opinion that some- 
thing requires to be done, inasmuch as two societies 
of noblemen and gentlemen have solicited information 
on the subject; I therefore offer them and the public 
the result of my observations. If my suggestions are 
in accordance with the principles of nature, as I believe 
them to be, the community at large may be materially 
benefited by acting upon them. 

It is necessary there should be extensive national 
plantations ; because private estates are liable to many 
changes, both of owners and managers, whose various 
wants and whims render the fate of the crop of timber 
very precarious. 

It would be adding a golden page to the record of 
the reign of our excellent Queen, if by Her Majesty's 
command an extensive provision of British oak were 
made for the future inhabitants of these islands. 

Numerous publications on the growth of timber 
have issued from the press, but I have not yet found 
one that treats, with sufficient attention, on the manner 
in which trees grow spontaneously. Artificial systems 
have been propounded, " line upon line," but all inves- 
tigations as to quality of timber have been strangely 
disregarded. Every part of the world has been 
searched, "from Indus to the Pole," and its various 
productions have been imported and cultivated, to rival 
the offspring of our own soil, although acknowledged by 



INTRODUCTION. 



vii 



all but the most hardened champions of their own 
interest, to be the best material to form the "buildings" 
which convey the wealth of commerce from every sea- 
port to our shores — the best material for the construction 
of ships which carry our avenging thunder to the home 
of threatening enemies, and are Britannia's bulwark 
against " a world in arms." 

There is one planter, and only one whom I except 
from the general mass ; and the records of the Royal 
Society corroborate my opinion. Had life been spared 
the illustrious and highly talented lady to whom 1 
allude, most probably from the unwearied anxiety with 
which she sought after practical knowledge, further 
valuable communications upon the subject would have 
been made to the society, and other golden medals 
would have been awarded for them. Long— long will 
the name of the late Duchess of Rutland shed a 
lustre on the records of that society. 

A Northamptonshire correspondent to the Gardeners' 
Gazette complains of the state of the Crown lands ; 
indeed several other publications have made similar 
statements, therefore I am not singular in the opinion 
I have given as to the management of the rural business 
of the office of woods and forests. I have made use 
of the name of Mr. Jesse,* as the representative of this 
department, and as a public servant, he having held 
the office of itinerant surveyor. When the importance 

* I will own a curiosity to learn whether this is the same gentleman 
whose name appears in the Court Calendar for 1832, page 101, under the 
head of Ewry. The service is, I believe, to take care of the Royal table 
linen, lay the cloth, and serve up water in silver ewers after dinner. 



viii 



INTRODUCTION. 



of the subject to the community is duly considered, it 
will not only be an apology, but will justify the freedom 
I have used. The means are at hand to provide as 
much timber as ever can be wanted : all that is required 
is that they who have the power should have the 
skill to rear it. When the ease by which such an event 
can be accomplished is demonstrated, the House of 
Commons will doubtlessly insist upon the adoption of 
the necessary arrangements. 

In works of this kind it is necessary to show some 
practical acquaintance with the subject : thirty years 
ago I assisted to set out land for plantations, and the 
crop of trees that are now growing there are of much 
more value than those in many plantations which were 
made by different planters at the same time, and are. 
situated on more favorable soils. Ever since that period 
I have made woods and forests my particular study. 

More than forty estates, in various parts of the 
kingdom, have been examined, and reports drawn up 
of the state of the timber and plantations on them. 
Those that I have mentioned in the following pages 
show the general state of things. Some of these estates 
are under the control of the office of woods and forests,- 
the Universities, the Courts of Chancery, trustees of 
charities of various kinds, and others belong to noble- 
men and gentlemen : none of them show an adherence 
to the principles of nature by which the trees grew to 
maturity in the ancient woods and forests, therefore no 
profit could be expected. The losses sustained by the 
present system operate in so many ways it is difficult 
to compute the amount. 



CHAPTER I. 



If ever there was a period when attention to 
the cultivation of oak timber was imperiously 
demanded, it is the present ; inasmuch as that 
which is now growing in our forests and woods, 
can bear no comparison with the produce in 
times gone by. The whims and fancies which 
have distinguished the planters and managers 
of timber, during the last hundred years, have 
sadly operated against the production of a store 
to supply any future deficiency. The number 
of acres reserved for the growth of wood in 
these kingdoms is considerable, and capable 
of producing an immense quantity of the best 

B 



2 GROWING GOLD. 

quality. The general practice, however, has 
been, and still is, to grow pines, beech, birch, 
poplars, alder, sycamore, the Turkish and 
sessiliflora oaks, &c. and to allow small 
stunted oak trees to occupy the land with the 
underwood, instead of cultivating oak timber 
trees. 

Owners appear to have paid no attention to 
this part of the subject, although it is certainly 
their interest to do so. It has been said that 
timber is only an excrescence to pay people's 
debts with, and no doubt many woods have been 
cut down for such purpose. Few writers appear 
to be fully aware of the importance of this 
subject, and the generality of managers appear 
by their works to be no better informed as to 
the rate timber increases in value, although 
Evelyn has given them broad hints respecting 
it, and has distinctly pointed out the cause 
which principally prevents its growth. He 
says, " to give an instance of what store of 
woods and timber of prodigious size there was 
growing in our little county of Surry (the 



GROWING GOLD. 



3 



nearest of any to London) and plentifully fur- 
nished both for profit and pleasure, (with grief 
and reluctancy I speak it) my own grandfather 
had standing at Wotton, and about the estate, 
timber, that now were worth one hundred 
thousand pounds, since of what was left by my 
father (who was a great preserver of wood), 
there has been thirty thousand pounds worth 
of timber fallen by the axe and the fury of the 
late hurricane and storm : now no more Wotton, 
stript and naked, and ashamed almost to own 
its name," — Sylva B. 3. C, 7. 

This is a clear recognition of the two great 
points which I now attempt to establish ; 
namely, the great importance of the subject, 
and the great injury to the timber by strong 
winds. 

Mr. Jesse, a gentleman who holds the office 
of inspector of parks and palaces to the de- 
partment of woods and forests, has published 
a work which he calls " Gleanings in Natural 
History," wherein he states the circumference 



4 GROWING GOLD. 

of a tree, of only seventy years old, to be 
twelve feet six inches ; and he copies from the 
Selbourne Journal an account of a tree, the 
first fourteen feet of which contained more than 
one thousand feet of timber, it being thirty- 
four feet in circumference. And he also 
mentions that a tree, grown in Wales, and which 
squared two thousand four hundred and twenty- 
six feet, was sold, with all its parts, and realized 
nearly six hundred pounds. All three of them 
were of course oak trees. This corroborates 
Evelyn most fully, and justifies the importance 
which is attached to the subject in these pages. 
It is most remarkable that Mr. Jesse merely 
mentions these trees, and appears to pride 
himself on doing it, in as few w ords as possible, 
although there are many far less important 
incidents related in his three volumes, which 
might have been better omitted. The accu- 
mulation of so much vegetable matter in so 
short a time, as in the first of his trees, ex- 
hibits, not only an interesting fact in natural 
history, but also a very advantageous circum- 
stance for the community to be aware of, there- 



GROWING GOLD. 



5 



fore it is much to be regretted that he did not 
give a more extended account of them. 

It is very questionable vrhether there are 
any means of obtaining so great a remunera- 
tion for capital without any risk, as by growing 
oak timber. The landowners of the last cen- 
tury, who annually planted a few acres, pro- 
perly, with oak trees, might justly direct their 
heirs to ''do likewise and live up to their 
rentals," for they and their posterity will al- 
ways have a sinking fund to resort to when 
an event occurs to demand an extraordinary 
expenditure. The imitation of so good an 
example is to be accomplished by arrange- 
ments which require but little, if any cash, to 
be drawn from the pocket, or land to be taken 
from the rental, as I shall shortly prove. 

From the extent of country that may be 
examined before a healthy and full growing 
oak tree can be found, of from thirty to one 
hundred years old, the presumption is, that 
many persons who now have the care and 



6 



GROWING GOLD. 



management of large woods and plantations, 
have never seen one. This, although an ex- 
traordinary assertion, is, nevertheless, but too 
correct. When owners of this kind of pro- 
perty investigate the point, they will be ready 
to admit the truth of the statement. From the 
present condition of trees in general, no other 
inference can be drawn. I can confidently 
affirm that many large estates have been 
looked over two or three times each, and there 
has not been found a single healthy looking 
oak tree of any age growing at its full natural 
rate : if wood agents of such estates had seen 
some fullgrown specimen, it is but just to 
presume they would have copied the means 
by which it had been reared . The least stunted 
young oak trees that have been discovered, 
whose ages are correctly known, are under 
the care of a person who has also the manage- 
ment of some hundreds of acres of woods and 
plantations, in which none but stunted, muti- 
lated, wind driven, dead topped, moss grown, 
diminutive trees are to be found. The blind- 
ness of this man is inexcuseable, because he 



GROWING GOLD. 



7 



has precedents to guide him to a more profit- 
able practice. Instances of twenty-five and 
fifty-five years' growth are invaluable, as they 
show increase enough to ensure a very large 
profit, and these exist on the very same estate ; 
and what renders these two cases still more 
important, is, that the ages of the trees can be 
accurately stated, which is frequently a matter 
of some difficulty. 

The privation of the knowledge of the 
growth of trees, by the present method of 
managing timber, and the slender hopes which 
the prospect affords of any extensive accumu- 
lation of property under it, will, it is to be 
hoped, stimulate landowners to adopt a dif- 
ferent method. When they reflect upon the 
profit that would accrue from growing native 
trees, and how much more to their advantage 
it would be than buying foreign timber, they 
will not fail to be thankful for having had their 
attention directed to the subject. It is not to 
be expected that they who are intrusted with 
the management of such property will, all at 



8 



GROWING GOLD. 



once, become converts to the author's opinion, 
and acknowledge themselves in error : indeed 
some have already manifested by their writ- 
ings, that they are indignant at its being 
supposed possible they can be acting wrong. 
The inspector of parks and palaces writes 
with as much complacency as if all were per- 
fection around him. If the commissioners at 
the head of his office do not point out to him 
the absurdity of wasting his time in talking 
with " mole and rat catchers," instead of em- 
ploying it agreeably to the tenor of the trust 
reposed in him, wholly to the advantage of 
the public, it is hoped that some member of 
the House of Commons who may have occasion 
to notice the charges for foreign timber in the 
estimates, will move for an inquiry as to the 
cultivation of oak in the royal forests, &c. Is 
due attention paid to it or not ? Is there not land 
which is now occupied by weeds and bushes 
only, capable of growing some millions of 
pounds worth of timber for the use of govern- 
ment? If the answer to this last question should 
show (and it assuredly will) that there is, then 



GROWING GOLD. 9 

if not prqfilahly planted, why not ? It is some- 
what extraordinary that a subject of such 
transcendent importance should have hitherto 
escaped with so little inquiry ; and yet it is 
not very surprising either when it is considered 
how many persons have been appointed to the 
management of timber albeit they have had 
no more fitness for the office than " babes in 
the wood." 

Appointments could be named little less 
ridiculous than giving the command of an East 
India ship to a music master, who had never 
been afloat before. By such an arrangement, 
the destruction of the ship might be calculated 
upon with tolerable accuracy : the failure of 
the growing crop of materials for ship building 
is no less certain by the appointment of im- 
proper persons to manage it. 

Pontey says, that " writing upon this sub- 
ject is a thankless office, as owners of woods 
and plantations will not confess their need of 
any such instructor." The nobility and large 
landow ners generally have persons to manage 



10 GROWING GOLD. 

this kind of property for them, and their libe- 
rality to those whom they thus employ, is a 
presumptive proof they wish it to be arranged 
in the best and most profitable manner. It is 
therefore but justice to them to assume they 
will gladly receive and countenance the advo- 
cate of any system that has a good title to their 
patronage. Such attacks come with a very ill 
grace from Pontey, who, as a planter, enjoyed 
a liberal share of the patronage of the highest 
ranks ; the very parties whom he accuses of 
ingratitude. This leads to a suspicion that 
his claim to applause, as an author, is not 
quite tenable. By visiting, however (as I 
have done) the estates of some of his patrons, 
and by measuring a few trees of various kinds 
and stating the market price of each, it will 
be easily demonstrated to what amount of 
credit his published opinions are entitled. It 
appears that his favorite trees were white 
beech — the pine class and sessilifiora oak. 

If government and landowners do not re- 
spond to the just claims of those who write oii 



GROWING GOLD. 11 

this subject, it is not their fault; the blame 
rests with those to whom the questions are 
referred for examination. Few men act with 
so little regard to their private interests as to 
draw up reports which impeach the accuracy 
of their own practice, or to go to their employers 
and say, " I have managed your woods until 
you have not a sound oak tree in them ; I ad- 
mit large trees formerly grew there, but there 
is now no prospect of any growing again to a 
great size ; and the plantations do not appear 
to increase in value ; I recommend you to look 
out for some one to correct my system of ma- 
naging woods and plantations." No man will 
condemn himself by voluntarily making these 
declarations. It is not the intention to attack 
either the honor or respectability of any person, 
but to demonstrate the just principle of our 
legal polity, that no man can be a judge in 
his own cause ;" — a maxim too frequently 
forgotten ! 

In the present case there are two parties ^ 
the managers of the vvoods and plantations 



12 



GROWING GOLD. 



and the author. The owners of landed pro- 
perty, as growers and consumers, and all con- 
sumers of timber, are the judges. When any 
person is courageous enough to condemn a 
general practice, he is sure to encounter a 
large share of opposition, if not odium, from 
all who are concerned in that practice ; but 
the gratification of being able to perform an 
important public duty ; that of demonstrating 
the means by which the nation can be ma- 
terially benefited, is a sufficient shield against 
the official spleen with which the author will, 
doubtless, be assailed. 

A nation, whose boundary is the sea shore, 
must ever be a large consumer of timber for 
shipping, and the considerable rise of the price 
of which must be an additional tax to the 
country, on every extensive repair or increase 
of the royal navy, and also be an increasing 
charge upon every article exported and im- 
ported, in the shape of higher rate of tonage, 
for the conveyance of every kind of goods by 
our merchant vessels. Nay, the high price of 



GROWING GOLD, 13 

oak timber must materially impede the trade 
of ship building in these kingdoms, if not cause 
it to cease altogether. That this must happen 
at no very remote period is certain, unless the 
most zealous endeavours are made, not only 
by the nation, but by private individuals. 
This fact demands but little exertion to prove 
it. The inspection of the woods and planta- 
tions in any given tract of country, and the 
report of gentlemen who have hunted in va- 
rious parts of the kingdom, will afford proof 
sufficient. 

It, perhaps, may be said, the evidence is 
not conclusive, and that it does not comprise 
the whole of the united kingdom, but it is 
argued, that the deficiency of timber in one 
part of the country may be taken as a strong 
presumptive proof of a limited quantity in the 
other parts of it. 

The demand for materials in ship building 
is, and will continue universal throughout the 
empire ; therefore the supposition is, that a 



14 GROWING GOLD. 

prospect of a sufficient quantity to supply that 
demand for a lengthened period is very im- 
probable, although not impossible. No doubt 
it will be stated, that the New Forest, Dean 
Forest, &c. are grpwing large quantities of the 
best quality, but what is this to the consump- 
tion by the whole kingdom ? It may be asked 
whether the most competent persons have 
examined these plantations and timber, or if 
the most natural means have been adopted to 
rear the trees to the greatest perfection. The 
reports from those places are far from favorable 
to the supposition that anything like the quan- 
tity per acre is growing that is expected ; this 
does not arise from any unsuitable state of the 
soil and climate, but from mismanagement 
and improper arrangements altogether. I do 
not hesitate to declare, that the most ample 
supplies ought to be expected from these 
national plantations. 

But, supposing on the other hand, that 
there is a sufficient supply now standing and 
growing for at least a century to come, it is 



GROWING GOLD. 15 

easy to show, that this is the best way of 
making a deposit for the future. If it is not a 
national duty for every individual to grow a 
certain portion of oak timber on his estates, it 
certainly is the duty of the nation to provide 
an extensive supply of materials in ship build- 
ing, for the use of future ages. The best proof 
that can be given to posterity of our greatness, 
is to furnish them with an ample store of what 
is indispensible to promote their happiness 
and prosperity. 

What will be said of the present age a 
century or two hence, if a scarcity of oak 
timber is severely felt, but that the people 
were so much engaged in decorating the 
metropolis with showy and expensive build- 
ings, which cost the revenue of a kingdom to 
maintain, that they forgot to provide the ma- 
terials for repairing and renewing those wooden 
walls, to which England owes all her greatness, 
and in the decay of which her own existence is 
indisputably involved ! Would they not call 
this a foolish and vain generation" with some 



16 



GROWING GOLD. 



justice ? A properly managed plantation of 
a few thousand acres of oak trees would be 
some equivalent to the future inhabitants of 
these islands, for the charge of maintaining 
the metropolitan adornments. The splen- 
dour of public buildings is of trifling conse- 
quence to a nation— a gorgeously built Admi- 
ralty will do but little to preserve our naval 
character. A good ship, well found in stores, 
is essential to its existence ; while sailors can 
say, hearts of oak are our ships," they will 
sing, ''hearts of oak are our men." It is a 
duty of no ordinary importance to provide a 
supply of the best materials for the erection 
and repairs of those buildings and things which 
are absolutely necessary, nay indispensible to 
the preservation of the commerce of a nation. 
The benefits conferred upon posterity, are im- 
perishable monuments of the greatness of the 
donors. The age that relies upon buildings 
to perpetuate its fame, is short sighted indeed ! 
Truly did the poet exclaim — 

*' Ambition sighed, she found it vain to trust 
The faithless column and the crumbling bust." 



GROWING GOLD. 17 

According to Hoppus,* considerably more 
importance was attached to the timber on an 
estate some years ago than at this period ; he 
says, in his preface, that " he knew a steward, 
who at his first entering into office was so 
exact, as to take an account of every single 
timber tree as well as others likely to become 
timber, in all the woods within his master's 
several manors." I have seen one of these 
timber books, and a valuable document it was 
to the owner, as the estate was well timbered : 
when taken, it was a complete inventory of 
the property. There are but few estates of 
the nobility and gentry which do not comprise 
from twenty to two or three hundred acres of 
wood land or plantations. Suppose a wood of 
thirty acres, with oak trees upon it, standing 
only ten yards apart, of one hundred feet in 
each tree, the price to be three shillings and 
six pence per foot, say fifty trees per acre, 
one thousand five hundred trees, at seventeen 
pounds ten shillings each, equal to twenty-six 
thousand pounds (round numbers). A calcu- 

* The author of the tables by which timber is bought and sold at this day. 
C 



18 GROWING GOLD. 

lation of this kind shows the importance of the 
subject much more clearly than the most elabo- 
rate argument. There are few estates which 
consist entirely of growing timber, therefore 
it is absolutely indispensable to have a person 
thoroughly competent to make the distinctions. 
The number of feet of timber and the number 
of trees likely to become timber, would be 
extremely small on many estates, and this 
circumstance is generally occasioned by mis- 
management. Owners would be surprised 
to find, if they employed an efficient wood 
agent to examine their property, the words 
''stunted and dying" in his report, against 
trees just measurable, i. e. six feet long and 
six inches square, in some woods considerably 
more than three-fourths of the whole number. 
Every proprietor of an estate should have a 
timber book, which would give him a correct 
idea of his resources, and would show, at one 
glance, the '' gold growing" for his posterity. 

But this business requires to be placed in 
proper hands, for many estates most deplorably 



GROWING GOLDo 



19 



display the want of some amendment in the 
management. Owners cannot be aware of the 
circumstance ; if they were, it is but reasonable 
to suppose they would lose no time in begin- 
ing the work of reformation. It is the nature 
of the generality of measures calculated to 
improve, to be slow in their operations. It is 
true, that trees now planted would be a consi- 
derable period ere they would become profit- 
able, but the owners would be benefited by 
the sale of existing trees, which annually de- 
crease in value from decay. The investing 
of the interest of the capital raised by the sale 
of the present crop, would increase in value at 
a greater rate than the trees now standing, in 
many places even after the charges for re- 
planting the land are deducted — proof of 
which can be given. 

The plantations that have been made during 
the last century, afford but little prospect of 
producing any thing like those immense trees 
mentioned by different writers. Future inha- 
bitants of this kingdom may want a vessel of 



20 GROWING GOLD. 

war as large as the Royal Sovereign, but where 
will they find an oak tree like the one used in 
the construction of that ship, and which came 
from Framlingham, in Suffolk, squared four 
feet nine inches, and whose length was forty- 
four feet ? Mr. Jesse may have "a seat upon 
the roots which help to support one of the old 
magnificent oaks in Richmond Park," but it 
is only in parks, and the immediate home 
grounds of baronial mansions, that such trees 
are to be found. This store has begun to di- 
minish at a great rate, and most of the trees 
have long past their prime, nay few, very few, 
are quite sound, therefore they would turn but 
to little account as timber. Humbolt, in his 
work on South America, and other writers of 
travels in newly explored countries, describe 
"the vast impenetrable forest and immense 
plains :" probably the one does not begin, nor 
the other end, abruptly ; for even in this highly 
cultivated country, to this day the close observer 
may perceive that the thick and lofty woods 
did not arise at once, exposed to the winds 
from the open country. The advanced guard 



GROWING GOLD. 



21 



of the forest naturally consists of extensive 
patches of gorse or furze, in bottoms and on 
hill sides, amongst which a few straggling and 
stunted white thorns are to be found, and as 
these increase in size and number, a few di- 
minutive roundheaded oak trees are to be seen 
a little higher than the thorns, but in pro- 
portion as the ranks become thicker and more 
sheltered, the trees increase in size and 
height, until at length they arrive at full 
growth, and " from the centre of the forest 
deep," uplift their majestic heads in mag- 
nificent maturity.* 

It is very extraordinary that planters should 
have disregarded this grand law of nature, and 
planted the fastest and highest growing trees 
in the most exposed situations, as if there was 
no proof of the effect of the wind upon trees in 
these kingdoms. But let them go to the sea 
shore, hilly districts, nay, level inland tracts 
of country ; any one of these places would 

* See Quarterly Review, No. 76, p. 439. — The planter may learn 
more from the perusal of this page than from the study of some volumes on 
growing timber. 



22 



GROWING GOLD. 



furnish irresistible evidence of its effect. 
The incredulous should spend a high-windy 
day in a park, or a ground planted with single 
trees, they would see from the rocking and 
twisting of each tree, that none of the large 
fast growing species can advance to maturity 
unless completely sheltered by other trees. 
The Dennington Park oak must have been 
closely sheltered whilst thriving. The one that 
was called The King's," was fifty feet high 
without a branch, or even a knot appearing ; 

The Queen's" was straight as a line for forty 
feet. The closeness of the surrounding trees 
protected their leading shoots, and killed the 
horizontal branches in their infancy. 

Wood plantations and trees, in the narrow 
valleys which open to the west, generally show 
the injury which is done to them by the wind, 
more than those which are growing in any 
other situation. The reason is obvious; the 
former are sheltered from all but the point 
whence the strongest gales are received. 



GROWING GOLD. 



23 



CHAPTER II. 



Having laid so much stress on the effect 
of wind upon trees, it is necessary to offer 
some evidence as to the fact. Before the 
existence of plantations, timber was the spon- 
taneous production of large woods and forests, 
where, amid an almost " boundless contiguity 
of shade," successive generations of trees arose 
and flourished, and at last decayed, ere the 
hand of man had marked them out for 
profitable uses. Each tree naturally received 
shelter and protection from the other, but 
there is little doubt that the removal of the old 
and decayed ones, to make room for their 



24 GROWING GOLD. 

rising families, was effected by the agency of 
violent winds. 

But to quit the " presumptive" for the 
circumstantial," a record of the ravages 
which the storms that have visited our island 
during the last five or six years have made, 
will furnish an almost inexhaustible mass of 
evidence, that there is in the action of the 
wind a greater impediment to the growth of 
timber than is generally imagined. The fol- 
lowing striking and important instances may 
however be deemed sufficient : — Chichester, 
October 13th. — We have experienced much 
boisterous weather in the early part of the 
week ; on Sunday morning, about seven 
o'clock, when the gale was at its height, and 
had left marks of its ravages between here and 
Arundle, a fine elm, at the Dairy House of 
Mr. W. Field, of Rumbold's Whyke, was 
snapped off at twelve feet from the ground, 
and the head driven rolling across the meadow 
until stopped by a strong fence. Trees, ricks, 
and buildings were damaged in every part of 



GROWING GOLD. 25 

the neighbourhood, although the fury of the 
storm appears to have been more severely felt 
in the parish of Walburton. Here a fine 
conservatory, belonging to Richard Prince, 
Esq. vras totally demolished. A barn, the 
property of G. Halstead, Esq. and a machine 
house were in one minute levelled with the 
ground; as also a group of seven large elm 
trees, an ash pollard with a large limb driven 
from the trunk, and a great portion of the same 
was, in sight of several spectators, taken into 
the air and carried entirely over a field of ten 
acres. A barn, at Binstead, a mile distant, 
in the exact direction of the wind from the 
above scene, was completely cut asunder, the 
doors and centre roof being shattered, and the 
two ends remaining entire. A barn of Mr. J. 
Coote, of Middleton, was blown down ; five 
wheat ricks had their tops blown off, and a 
great portion of their sheaves scattered to 
atoms." — Sun Newspaper, October 16th, 1832. 

The elm tree planted by Pope, in the 
Court Yard of Burlington Gardens, upwards 



26 GROWING GOLD. 

of a century ago, was rent in twain and blown 
down in one of the late equinoctial gales, 
greatly to the regret of the noble family." — 
Morning Herald, November 2nd, 1833. 

''Upwards of thirteen hundred valuable 
trees were blown down by the late severe gales 
which visited the eastern coast, in the Earl of 
Tankerville's Park, at Chillingham." — Tyne 
Mercury and Morning Herald, March 3rd, 1836. 

" The gales of Tuesday. — The damage in 
Kensington Gardens has proved far more ex- 
tensive than was first supposed. In all about 
one hundred and thirty of the largest trees 
have been destroyed, a considerably larger 
number than that which perished in the hurri- 
cane of the 3rd of March, 1824. On no pre- 
vious occasion has the wind made such havoc 
amongst the evergreens in the garden as at 
the present. In Hyde Park the devastation 
has not been so extensive, not more than 
about forty trees having been torn up, yet 
amongst them are some venerable and stately 



GROWING GOLD. 27 

oaks that had previously weathered many a 
storm." — Standard, December ^\st, 1836. 

Now, if a plantation that is not very ex- 
tensive, and in which the trees are not 
sufficiently close together to protect each 
other, should be bufFetted by a strong storm 
but once in fifty years, there would be but 
faint hopes of its thriving principle escaping 
complete destruction. 

A light gale of wind, indeed, may not in- 
flict any perceptible injury on a plantation if 
it assail it but one day, or even one hour in a 
year ; and yet such a check may be given to 
its growth as shall afterwards be evidenced by 
stem and branch being twisted and shaken 
beyond all recovery. 

It is very common to see comments in the 
newspapers on high winds and the consequent 
prostration of trees, which for ages had 
withstood preceding storms," and such com- 
ments would lead many to infer that a storm 



28 



GROWING GOLD. 



of equal violence had never before visited our 
island ; but to estimate its fury by the number 
of trees that have fallen before it, is to ''jump 
upon wrong conclusions ;" for this reason, 
because in the olden time woods and forests 
presented a mu*ch denser and mightier pha- 
lanx, if I may be allowed the expression, to 
the winds that warred against them. 

They who do not attend to the subject 
probably pass it over with the simple excla- 
mation of " what a dreadful storm ! " but 
when the matter is rigidly examined, it will 
be found that the storm was not so dreadful 
as at first it appeared to be. The case 
of Kensington Gardens for instance: — the 
storm of 1824 and the trees cut down in the 
spring of 1835 (see Morning Herald) caused an 
opening ; trees which, perhaps, previously to 
these falls of timber had hardly moved a twig, 
had at the commencement of the recent gales 
to bear the whole of their force ; being proba- 
bly of greater length of stem, expansion of top, 
and having but little roots, it was therefore 



GROWING GOLD. 29 

impossible for them to stand in rough weather, 
when the wind caught them from the opening 
which had been made. When growing trees 
are closely surrounded by others, they have 
comparatively little roots or top, but as soon 
as those which screen them are removed, they 
generally cease to grow higher, and commence 
throwing out large horizontal branches ; the 
head also becomes much thicker of leaves and 
twigs ; this, in addition to the length of stem, 
gives the wind irresistible power over them. 
The stem of course nearly ceases to increase 
in circumference under these circumstances. 

The account of the evergreens is copied to 
show that the force of the wind near the 
ground is so considerable, that dwarf plants 
may be more severely injured than has been 
generally supposed. 

This fact strengthens the opinion that 
plants in young plantations ought to stand 
closely together. It is no uncommon thing to 
see, on the exposed peaks of hills and small 



30 



GROWING GOLD. 



plantations in a level country, young trees 
planted four feet apart, and sometimes at a 
greater distance, all fast growing trees, which 
average, when full grown, from one hundred 
and fifty to two hundred feet ; the deficiency 
of the growth of them excites surprise in the 
owners, and the inferiority of the soil is fre- 
quently considered the cause, when, in reality, 
it is bad management. If a richly sheltered 
valley is planted at the same time, and with 
trees the same distance apart, the trees may 
perhaps grow very well, but had double the 
number per acre been set out on hill tops and 
in small plantations, there probably would 
have been much less difference than may be 
supposed in the growth of the trees up to a 
certain period, although it must not be con- 
cealed that few such situations can be expected 
to grow trees to maturity, which have a great 
length of stem. In the Tankerville case, 
curiosity is somewhat raised to learn the parti- 
culars, because many planters appear to fancy 
all their duty is comprised in a very few words ; 

"To make a show their only game ; 
The picturesque their only aim." 



GROWING GOLD. 



31 



There are some minds less controlled by 
reasoning than by precedent ; to such the 
local histories of woodland districts will afford 
ample testimony to corroborate the opinion 
that oak timber cannot be grown to advantage 
unless closely sheltered ; some may attempt 
to prove that although the largest trees have 
grown completely surrounded by others, shelter 
is not absolutely necessary : but those persons 
who think so, ought to examine thin planta- 
tions in exposed situations, or even single 
trees anywhere. Let them search the early 
historians, they will prove the fact that the 
woods and forests were thickly covered with 
trees ; indeed Leland's description of Sherwood 
Forest may be offered as an indubitable proof. 

More inland is Sherwood which some render 
the clear, others the famous forest, anciently 
thickset with trees whose entangled branches 
were so twisted together they hardly left 
room for a single person to pass." It was not 
only the closeness of the trees in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the large ones, but the shelter 
continued frequently for many miles round 



32 



GROWING GOLD. 



them : it is also stated that in Hampshire 
alone there were nearly forty thousand acres 
of wood land, exclusive of New Forest, 
which consisted of ninety-three thousand 
acres. 

As the attempt to grow such trees as are 
natives of foreign soils is become so general, 
it is necessary to show in what manner they 
grow there. 

Mr. Brooke, in his travels to the North 
Cape, admires the beauty of the forest 
scenery, "where it is not so compact as to 
admit light and air," (Quarterly Review, No. 
59, p. 120). Let it be observed that the 
words "to admit light and air^' furnish the 
only excuse pruners and thinners of plan- 
tations -have for the injury their plans dh, 
wherever they are allowed to operate ; and it 
is certain, the pine class stand much more 
closely in their native wilds than modern 
planters appear to believe it possible for 
them in order to arrive at maturity. 



GROWING GOLD. 33 

America, to this day, affords numberless 
proofs in support of the views here taken. A 
gentleman who has travelled extensively in 
the United States, and hunted for seven 
months in the Michigan Territory and State 
of Ohio, about one hundred and twenty miles 
southward of Lake Erie, on the banks of the 
Maumee River, has favored me with his 
opinion as to the distance the trees stand 
from each other in the back woods. ''The 
stems of some nearly touch each other, while 
others vary in distance from five to six yards." 
This has been confirmed by a Michigan 
farmer ; he states, that " where the trees are 
finest and tallest, he cannot drive a cart 
between them." These woods consist of trees 
of all ages ; some in the last stage of decay, 
and others, in the immediate neighbourhood, 
just springing from the seed; so that the 
young are sheltered by the old. 

This is the nature of trees — alike in the 
Old as in the New World. In corroboration 
of the statements just quoted, it may be 

D 



34 



GROWING GOLD. 



added, that Birbeck, in his Notes on America, 
page 102 — 3, gives a very intelligible pic- 
ture of the forest of that country, and 
thereby conveys the strongest proof of the 
accuracy of the foregoing opinions on the 
growth of timber. " Yet the view of that 
noble expanse (the Ohio) was like the opening 
of bright day upon the gloom of night, to us 
who had been so long buried in the deep forest." 

"To travel, day after day, among trees 
one hundred feet high, without a glimpse of 
the surrounding country, is oppressive to a 
degree which those who never experienced 
cannot conceive." 

His (the hunter's) visible horizon extends 
no further than the tops of the trees which 
bound his plantation : perhaps five hundred 
yards upwards he sees the sun, the sky, and 
stars, but around him is eternal forest." 

In his general habits, the hunter ranges 
as free as the beast he pursues, still he is in- 



GROWING GOLD. 35 

carcerated — shut from the common air : the 
breeze of health never reaches these poor 
wanderers ; buried in the depth of boundless 
forests, they are tall and pale like vegetables 
that grow in a vault, pining for light." — Page 
109. 

On these statements it is assumed that 
trees naturally grow very closely together and 
in large numbers ; therefore it is held that 
the evidence is sufficiently strong to remove 
all the objections upon which the advocates 
of the system of thinning plantations ground 
their arguments. Instead of admitting light 
and air," as it is foolishly pretended, to benefit 
the health of the crop of trees allowed to be 
left on the land, we strongly suspect that the 
ruling motive is the amount of present money 
that may be gained by the ultimately destruc- 
tive plan of periodical thinnings. In many 
cases this practice has been pursued with 
such ceaseless vigour, that all, or nearly all 
the trees which remain on some extensive 
estates, are stunted, decaying, and profitless ; 



36 



GROWING GOLD. 



and what is worse, the system continues un- 
abated, and the plantations of tender age are 
subject to the same ruinous process. 

It is stated that ''vegetables are subject to 
many diseases : sometimes they are covered 
with a whitish matter, which sticks to them 
like dust, this is called the mildew. This does 
not proceed from insects as is commonly be- 
lieved, but from a stagnation in the juices, 
and a commencement of corruption, which 
attracts the insects and entices them to lay 
their eggs upon it. The stagnation of the 
juices is the first stage of corruption, and it is 
supposed that this alone is sufficient to attract 
insects, because they are seen swarming by 
thousands as soon as, through a natural or 
artificial cause, the circulation of the juices 
is stopped in a tree. Hence it is, that the 
weakest and worst situated trees are most fre- 
quently exposed to this malady. If the insects 
were really the cause of it, it would be impos- 
sible to produce it by art : whereas, if a tree be 
designedly wounded, or deprived of the care it 



GROWING GOLD. 37 

requires, this is sufficient to bring the mildew. 
On a tree thus artificially weakened, thou- 
sands of insects settle at once, while the 
neighbouring trees are free from them. Thus, 
this corruption should no more be attributed 
to insects than that of flesh. It seems merely 
to be occasioned by the stagnation of the 
juices; an accident which many circumstances 
may occasion." 

This, then, fully explains the cause of the 
noss disease, and that decay of trees which 
has been observed in so many different places. 
The only question is, whether it is ascribed to 
the true cause of the injury the growing crop 
of timber is suffering under ; namely, a want 
of sufficient shelter. — In all situations where 
young trees are sufficiently protected from 
the wind, they are not only free from moss, 
but are healthy, sound, and fast growing. 
Where they do not stand close enough to 
shelter each other from the wind, they are 
bush headed, moss grown, short stemmed, 
twigged to the bottom, diminutive, decayed 



38 



GROWING GOLD. 



at top, have mutilated branches, and are 
stunted : this is occasioned by the stagnation 
of the juices, and it is in no way so likely to 
be caused extensively as by the wind. Indeed, 
the question is completely set at rest by an 
examination of the statements and the expe- 
riments made to ascertain the force of the 
wind by the anemometer, an account of which 
is subjoined. Taking No. 3 (brisk gale) as an 
example, it is asked, how is it possible for the 
leading shoot of any fast growing tree to bear 
a frequent pressure of a pound weight upon a 
square foot of leaves ? And it will be seen that 
a leading shoot of a fast growing oak tree, du- 
ring the summer months, is only a vegetable 
stem, therefore unable to resist the most 
trifling force or pressure. As these calcula- 
tions have hitherto been altogether omitted 
by preceding writers on plants, and prac- 
tical cultivators of young trees, it is highly 
important to exhibit them here, because 
the failures are at once accounted for, as 
well as the cause of the checks in the 
growth of many large plantations. Injudi- 



GROWING GOLD. 



39 



cious thinnings and pmnings too are no less 
destructiye, as we have previously shown. 



Force of the wind ascertained by the 
anemometer, by Lind, Daniel, and others. 





Miles per hour. 


Force in lbs. 
per square foot. 


Gentle 


4 


5 . . 


. . 0,079 




8 


0 . . 


, . 0,260 




16 


0 ... 


. 1,170 


High 


36 


0 ... 


. 5,280 




62 


0 . . . 


. 15,625 




88 


0 . . . 


. 31,250 


Great Hurricane . 


120 


0 .. 


. 58,000 



Phillips's Million of Facts, page 455. 



This statement will surely justify all the 
arguments here advanced as to the necessity 
of impervious shelter for the growth of oak 
trees. It is a matter of surprise that this was 
not demonstrated long ago, for Strutt says, in 
his Sylva Britannica, ''it is peculiar to this 
part of Renfrewshire, that the branches of 
trees generally extend more to the south-east 
than to the north-west." It is true he noticed 



40 



GROWING GOLD. 



the effect, and it is astonishing he did not 
search for the cause. 

If the fourth rate or high wind of five 
pounds pressure upon a square foot occurs 
but twice or three times in a year, it is 
needless to describe the effect of it upon plan- 
tations which have been too much thinned. 

It might be asked whether the wind is asN 
strong on the European Continent as it often 
is in these islands ? Navigators describe the 
calms and prevailing winds in certain parts 
of the ocean ; and Humbolt, in describing the 
forest of Oroonoko, states, 'Uhat the breeze, 
if ever it be felt, blows only after sunset," (vol. 
5, p. 68). And again, "no breath of wind 
ever agitates the foliage." In those regions, 
the species of spruce described by Lewis and 
Clark, and also by Douglas, may ascend to 
the greatest height possible, from their not 
being moved or injured by winds. Hence, the 
immense length of such trees is accounted for, 
and it ceases to be a subject to excite wonder. 



GROWING GOLD, 41 

Perhaps the most conclusive evidence that 
can be offered, is to be found in the second 
part of the work of that distinguished writer, 
Humbolt, (p. 418) — "it is difficult to form an 
idea of the frightful noise made by thousands 
of these birds in the dark part of the cavern : 
it can be compared only to that of our crows, 
which, in the fir forests of the north, live in 
society and build their nests in trees which 
meet at the top'' It therefore appears that al- 
though nurserymen and others have intro- 
duced the species of trees, they have not 
advised an adherence to the manner in which 
they grow in their native forests. The few 
words of the excellent Baron, " trees which 
meet at the top,'' are invaluable evidence, and 
clearly prove what the law of nature is on this 
point, and that the disregard of it by the 
modern planters and managers of woods and 
plantations, occasions all the mischief com- 
plained of. Where the tops of the trees press 
against each other throughout each wood or 
plantation, individual trees receive but a 
trifling share of wind, and the outside trees 



42 



GROWING GOLD. 



are supported, so that few, if any of them, 
receive injury even in the roughest gales. 
This natural defence is a complete answer to 
the system so generally practised by modern 
wood agents, of admitting light and air to the 
stems of trees : it is quite clear that such a 
measure is not required. 

Let it be supposed that the average height 
of the pine class and larch is one hundred 
feet, when arrived at maturity, (and this is 
much less than the length they grow to in 
their native mountains and forests) ; and also 
that the head of a tree, from the top of the 
leading shoot to the lowest branch is fifteen 
feet, this gives a clear eighty-five feet purchase 
upon the roots every time the wind moves. 
It is admitted by all planters and writers on 
planting young trees for timber, that the trees 
require shelter when they are set out, and a 
greater number is therefore set than could 
stand upon the ground should they grow to 
half their natural size. If trees require shelter 
when their tops are only three or four feet 



GROWING GOLD. 



43 



from the ground, how much more do they 
need it when their heads are three or four 
score feet higher ; but this is not all, for while 
they are growing to that height, the leading 
shoot has to ascend, therefore shelter is as 
necessary then, as earlier ; besides, there is a 
greater expansion of top, which, with the 
additional length of stem, keeps the roots 
upon the constant strain, whenever the wind 
blows : thus, without admitting the principle 
of the lever, no one can be competent to 
manage woods and plantations. Frequently 
white deal logs are to be seen in the merchants' 
and builders' yards, of fifty or sixty feet in 
length, which will square from eight inches to 
two feet throughout: these white deals were 
from spruce fir trees, which, when standing, 
were considerably more than one hundred and 
fifty feet high, and had tops of thick branches, 
extending fifteen feet at least, covered with 
leaves impervious to the wind. How is it 
possible such a tree could singly stand the 
rough gales of our climate? Yet it is at- 
tempted, and in some places extensively ; one 



44 GROWING GOLD. 

spot in particular could be named, but with 
what success the trees grow need not be said. 
The spruce is also frequently planted with 
deciduous trees, to form narrow belts, which 
is nearly as bad as planting the spruce singly. 
Were planters to calculate what such failures 
cost them, it would be some sign of amend- 
ment. It is no uncommon thing to see spruce 
fir trees set as screens instead of dwarf ever- 
green shrubs, laurels, &c. in places where 
they either die or grow rapidly ; if the latter, 
they soon expose the objects they were set to 
hide, and when grown higher than the build- 
ings, &c. they are generally blown down or 
broken by the wind. Surely nurserymen 
should have more compassion upon their 
ignorant customers than to recommend such 
unsuitable plants to them ; they cannot how- 
ever be blamed very much, as it is natural 
for a tradesman to endeavour to sell his goods. 
And he has, perhaps, a right to assume that 
his customers ought to consider his recom- 
mendations as a matter of course, and be able 
to detect those which have no legitimate 



GROWING GOLD. 



45 



foundation to be depended upon. Too often 
the cheapness of plants causes their unsuit- 
ableness for the situation and purpose in- 
tended to be overlooked. But we would hint 
to all such purchasers, that penny wisdom " 
has never been known to succeed in producing 
a result which we designate "Growing Gold." 



46 



GROWING GOLD. 



CHAPTER III. 



It is a remarkable circumstance, that they 
who have written upon the cultivation and 
management of timber, and they who are 
intrusted with the care of it, should have 
omitted to make themselves acquainted with 
the manner in which it grew spontaneously in 
the ancient woods and forests, and should 
have adopted, without any inquiry, an arti- 
ficial system, at variance with every principle 
of nature. 

The commissioners of the office of woods 
and forests, their inspectors and surveyors, 



GROWING GOLD. 



47 



and also the owners of estates and their agents, 
have been the dupes of the nurserymen, who 
have uniformly recommended the pine class 
and other trees which produce timber inferior 
to the Common British Oak. On whom the 
blame rests for having in the first instance 
advised the mixture of so many kinds of trees, 
it is unimportant to inquire, but a universal 
adoption of the plan is a matter of astonish- 
ment. Many acres of pines have been 
planted for game covers, and the practice is 
continued, although it is not the best arrange- 
ment that could be made, inasmuch as when 
the tops of such trees ascend to ten or twelve 
feet, the lower branches die off, and then the , 
game are as much exposed as if there were no 
trees. 

The wood agents have followed the practice 
of their forefathers in thinning the old woods, 
utterly regardless of the young trees springing 
spontaneously amongst the old ones, and 
which they have cleared away with the under- 
wood : hence the system has worn itself out. 



48 



GROWING GOLD, 



The author speaks of facts : in many woods 
all the timber has been cut, and the few small 
trees which have arisen by chance are gene- 
rally bush headed, short stemmed, and show 
no 3igns of growing to maturity. The chief 
reliance for a profit appears to be upon the 
growth of underwood. Profit from the growth 
of oak seems to be a complete casualty. 

The adoption of the pine class of trees as 
a substitute for oaks also exhibits an unac- 
countable absence of inquiry ; previously to 
so extensive an introduction it ought to have 
been ascertained whether the quality of the 
pine timber grown in this country would be 
equal to that produced in the severer climate 
of their native regions. Those persons who 
are intrusted with the care of estates where 
the oldest pine trees are standing (provided 
there was an inclination) could answer this 
question satisfactorily. As the excellence of 
English-grown fir timber has not been proved, 
there is reason to believe that it is very inferior 
to that imported. This is not from the defi- 



GROWING GOLD. 49 

ciency of size, as there are trees which would 
cut into boards of the same length and width. 
If the qualities are equal (which is implied by 
the continuance of the formation of plantations 
of pines) how does it happen that the agents 
sell the produce of the estates of which they 
have the care, at so inferior a price, in lots, 
and not by measure, as oak timber is sold 1 
The truth is, the quality is so inferior they are 
glad of a customer, and will generally take 
any price offered. Although many inquiries 
have been made, only one person could be 
found who had bought home-grown fir by 
measure : he gave the magnificent sum of six- 
pence per foot ! ! one seventh of the price of 
oak. Notwithstanding this, land agents con- 
tinue to purchase larch, Scotch, and spruce 
fir plants, of the nurserymen, as if Britain 
had no native trees worth cultivating. They 
appear spell-bound to an erroneous system ; 
one of them has even ventured to declare that 
no improvement can be made and no inquiry 
is necessary ; although, he could get no more 
for larch poles of eighteen years standing, 

E 



50 



GROWING GOLD. 



(it can hardly be called growth) than one 
penny each ! ! ! 

The professional planters also styled them- 
selves pruners (Pontey for instance) ; if in 
the former character they had recommended 
planting trees of one species very closely 
together, there would have been no prospect 
of employment in the latter capacity ; because 
there would have been no horizontal branches 
to be cut off. It is hardly possible that they 
could really believe that the system which 
they recommended was in accordance with 
the operations of nature, or that it was the 
most advantageous one that could be adopted 
by their employers. The same system has 
been recommended for the south of England 
as for the north of Scotland, notwithstanding 
the great difference of the climate: in the 
latter there are natural pine forests," the 
timber of which is stated to be of excellent 
quality and full of turpentine, and which no 
doubt is matured by the coldness of the 
situation — verging upon perpetual snow. 



GROWING GOLD. 



51 



The first introducers of these trees into the 
midland and southern parts of Britain, must 
have stated some reason for the preference, 
but it could not have been the superiority of 
such timber over that of oak, nor that pines 
would grow better on inferior soils than the 
native trees, because, in every part of the 
kingdom, oak is to be found growing on poor 
soils of all kinds. Larch, &c. have been 
planted amongst old oaks, as if they were of 
equal, if not superior value to the native 
trees ; in other places they are used as nurses 
for young ones. This favors the opinion that 
the advocates of such a system were deluded 
by the notion that the rate of growth of the 
pride of our forests was inferior to that of tlie 
pine class. Indeed, there is a sort of tra- 
ditional belief in many parts of the kingdom, 
that oak is a slow growing tree, a belief 
which was in all probability induced in the 
first instance by its longevity, and afterwards 
strengthened by the erroneous system of 
cultivation. But the measures of the size of 
various kinds of trees, near oaks, given in the 



52 GROWING GOLD. 

following pages, show an equality of growth 
which at once proves that the preference for 
exotics is both undeserved and indefensible. 
It is most extraordinary, that there should be 
authors who admit this equality, and at the 
same time persist in recommending fir trees. 

The present system of managing the pine 
plantations has also run its length, for there 
are very few trees of fifty feet in height, that 
are not stunted and decaying, or decayed : 
indeed, similar effects are to be seen in many 
under that height, although, by a reference to 
the authorities, it will be found that it is not 
more than one third of the average height to 
which they grow in their native woods and 
forests. 

Matthews says, " there must be some con- 
stitutional tendency to corruption in the larch, 
as the rot is often found to take place in the 
most luxuriant growing plants, in open situ- 
ations, branched to the ground, and growing 
in deep soil, free from stagnating water." (p. 



GROWING GOLD. 



53 



81.) The truth is, that larch grows at a great 
rate on rich soils, therefore it requires im- 
pervious shelter, that its leading shoot may 
be uninjured by the wind. When injury 
takes place, branches extend themselves from 
the middle part of the stem, but, at the 
same time, decay commences in the centre 
of the lower end. It may have been that 
the plantations which are now decaying 
required thinning, but there was certainly no 
occasion for the axe to be laid to the root so 
frequently and extensively. " It wrought 
destruction where it should have spared." 
There is ample evidence that many planta- 
tions have been ruined by premature thin- 
nings ; amongst others, those belonging to the 
late Bishop Watson, whose publication at 
least sanctioned, if he did not originate the 
baneful practice. Of this fact I was in- 
formed by a gentleman who has a brother 
living in the neighbourhood. There is also 
some reason to doubt whether the kinds of 
trees which grow to so great a height will 
arrive at maturity on situations where they 



54 



GROWING GOLD. 



have been planted, even under the most skilful 
management. 

The question as to the quality of the 
timber of larch appears not to be sufficiently 
attended to. " Larch is valuable only for the 
grosser parts of buildings, as beams, &c. for 
the finer parts, it is so much disposed to warp 
and so difficult to be worked, as generally to 
preclude its use." (Matthews, p. 103.) This 
is a well known fact, — ladders made of it have 
become so twisted as to be unfit for use. He 
also states, **it yields to the depredation of 
the insects as soon as any pine timber, and 
that the sea worm devours it in preference to 
almost any wood;" and that "some experi- 
ments were made at Woolwich, in trial of the 
comparative strength of it and other pine 
timber, when it was stated to be inferior to 
Riga and Dantzic fir, pitch pine, and eveii 
yellow pine." 

Surely these important facts ought to be 
urged against its general introduction into 



GROWING GOLD. 



55 



plantations, as it tends so materially to di- 
minish their value. Yet, we repeat, it is used 
by the planters of the present day as if it 
were equal, if not superior, to oak timber for 
general purposes. 

Matthews reviews Billington's practice 
in Dean Forest somewhat sharply; indeed 
he has a good title to do so, if the system 
pursued is not better than that which is 
practised in the Royal Parks near London. 
Yet, instead of correcting him, he falls into 
an error equally glaring. The larch are re- 
commended to be preserved, notwithstanding 
his account of the inferiority of the timber, 
and the oaks to be cut out ; probably, if the 
larch had been trimmed on the sides nearest 
the stunted oaks," and these trees cut down, 
they would, the following year, have produced 
large shoots from the stubs, which, in a few 
years, would have grown to the height of the 
larch, but it is seldom, if ever the case, that 
in mixed plantations, they grow to their full 
and natural altitude. 



56 



GROWING GOLD. 



It, however, requires extensive practical 
knowledge to secure a crop of oaks in mixed 
plantations ; it is not only the most expensive 
method, but the slowest, however skilfully 
the trees may be pruned and thinned ; 
therefore it is the least profitable. 

There are estates Avhich many people who 
are unacquainted with the subject believe to 
be well stored with timber, but in reality the 
American term " lumbered," is the only one 
that can be justly applied to them. One in a 
maritime county for instance, the property 
of a nobleman : there are large trees of all 
kinds ; oak, ash, larch, cedar, spruce, Scotch, 
Weymouth and other pines, beech, &c. It 
appears from an article in a respectable 
periodical publication, that these trees are 
now nearly, if not quite, a century old, there- 
fore, if they had all been of a marketable 
quality, they would now have been a vast 
pecuniary resource to the noble owner; *'but 
oak is the only saleable produce of the estate 
in large quantities ; the beech is sold for fire 



GROWING GOLD. 57 

wood, as much as can be laid upon a waggon 
for sixteen shillings, and the seller thankful 
for customers at that price : very large and 
perfectly sound trees are cut into billets for 
sale and for home consumption." This is 
also the case upon the estate of a nobleman 
in a midland county: yet these noble lords 
are large buyers of foreign timber, although 
those very parts of their estates on which the 
inferior timber is grown, would grow oak 
timber of the best quality, under good manage- 
ment. Each of these noblemen having very 
large families, an increase of property is de- 
sirable, although their estates are very exten- 
sive; but even if this was not the case, as 
patriots, they ought to grow large quantities 
of an article on which the safety and 
commercial greatness of the empire mainly 
depend for their very existence ; and yet they 
continue to plant the inferior wooded trees. 
What are their agents about? Is timber 
property or not ? It is to be feared these 
noblemen have not disciples of Hoppus for 
''stewards''; perhaps they are like the late 



58 



GROWING GOLD. 



— — who made it a rule never to go 

into a timber yard himself, because it was a 

dirty place! or like the Marquis of 's 

agent, who did all the business of his office 
by deputy, except corresponding and dining 
with his patron ! ! No wonder the plantations 
under his care were in a thriftless state, and 
that his lordship went abroad to retrench. 
Landowners forget there were such men as 
Brindley, whose genius more than doubled 
the value of the property he superintended. 

Matthews suggests a very whimsical plan 
to remedy the mismanagement of the Royal 
timber and plantations, — that of giving titles 
to those persons who can produce a certain 
number of oak trees upon their estates. This 
does not appear to be necessary. If land- 
owners are convinced it is a profitable method 
of applying the worst part of their estates, 
and they have also a clear opinion when the 
bonus will accrue to their heirs, they will no 
longer be directed by the landscape gardeners 
and the speculating nurserymen. 



GROWING GOLD. 



59 



Let all at the head of this department of 
the government examine the reasonableness 
of the suggestions made to them, and en- 
courage those who have the best title, without 
favor or affection, and eventually the pro- 
ceedings of the officers will cease to be a 
subject of ridicule; the only motive that we 
have for observing their faults is to correct 
our own. 

From an examination of more than forty 
estates in various parts of the kingdom, the 
following are selected to show the general 
state of the timber growing on them. 

Estate, No. 3, Richmond Park. 

It is very probable that some part of this 
park was planted under the superintendence 
of Evelyn, as there is a considerable number of 
trees of the necessary age to sanction the sup- 
position. These trees no doubt grew well for 
many years, but they have for a considerable 
time past ceased to thrive, from having bee» 



60 GROWING GOLD. 

thinned too much. It was stated by a person 
who had witnessed several falls of timber, that 
at least two thirds of it was decayed, and the 
oldest timber in the centre of the park bears 
striking evidence of its having long ceased to 
increase in value. In various parts of the 
park several trees were lying down, the re- 
mains of former falls, all of them more or 
less decayed; whether they were unsold, or 
the purchasers had failed to take them away, 
could not be ascertained, but probably the 
former, for a purchaser seldom gets a good 
bargain in buying decayed oak timber, unless 
the grower makes a considerable allowance ; 
as there is no calculating the extent of the 
defects, it is generally an article not readily 
disposed of in large quantities. 

Before oak timber arrives at a state of 
natural decay, it often becomes of a mahogany 
colour, which decreases its value at least one 
fourth or two fifths ; for the best quality 
would be cheaper at five shillings than red 
oak is at three shillings per foot. 



GROWING GOLD. 61 

Standing at the north entrance of this 
park, a stranger might exclaim, what a fine 
show of timber; a closer examination would 
not confirm this opinion, as there is a con- 
siderable number of pollards in some parts of 
the park ; there are, nevertheless, some good 
looking trees, but, with trifling exceptions, 
none of them will increase in value. When 
large trees arrive at this state, the timber 
loses much of its toughness, and frequently 
receives great damage from felling, however 
carefully or skilfully performed ; and if the 
decrease of capital is estimated from this loss, 
and also from decay, from the time the trees 
arrive at full growth, and if the loss of interest 
is also computed, these ancient ornaments 
are of the most expensive description. In 
reality it is bad taste to endeavour to preserve 
that which nature has assigned to decay : there 
are some who advocate the preservation of 
these vegetable mementos of the "olden time," 
who ought to know the period in which saplings 
will grow to the same size ; therefore, why not 
remove these old trees and replant the land ? 



62 GROWING GOLD. 

This is a case, in point, in which neither mo- 
ney is required from the pocket nor land from 
the rental (as stated in p. 5); and there are 
many thousands of acres of wood land on which 
the trees are equally thriftless, but which would 
yield a surplus after a crop of young trees 
had been planted, in the best manner, upon 
the land. It appears that they who introduced 
the fashionable trees in this place, disregarded 
all the evidence which an examination of the 
ancient oaks and thorns afforded them ; the 
latter were evidently the natural nurses of 
the seedlings of the former: why this indis- 
putable law of nature was disregarded, and 
the reverse became the general practice, 
cannot satisfactorily be accounted for. In all 
the ancient forests and woods, hazel, thorns, 
and other dwarf trees were the nurses of 
young oaks : in almost all the modern plan- 
tations, fast growing large exotics (pines, &c.) 
have been adopted. The tenacity with which 
the fashion is adhered to amidst so many 
failures is most extraordinary, but the im- 
policy of it is becoming so obvious, that they 



GROWING GOLD. 



63 



who are interested in supporting it, will soon 
find their efforts ineffectual. 

The oldest person to be met with in this 
place was rather under seventy years of age, 
he was native of the park," and, during his 
recollection, the oak trees had stood at least 
two thirds thicker than at this period ; some 
felled trees on the south side of a rather steep 
hill were less decayed than others, which, 
when standing, were exposed to the north 
west; although the former were older, they 
were not so tall by twenty feet, therefore 
these trees suffered from being more exposed, 
in proportion to their greater length of stem. 
Indeed, there is no doubt that all the 
original trees to the north west of this wood 
have been cleared away, and that the work 
of thinning has been too rashly executed in 
other parts ; consequently there can be no 
wonder at the early decay which is manifested. 
Many persons having the management of 
timber do not appear to be aware that 
shelter is as necessary for the preservation 



64 &ROWING GOLD. 

of it, when advanced in growth, as while it is 
growing. 

There are three trees standing in the wood 
on the north side of the park, deserving great 
attention, from the circumstance of their 
standing closely to each other ; their situations 
will be better understood by the following 
diagram : — 

N. 



9 feet ia 




circumference. 

s. 

It is to be regretted that the means were 
not at hand to give an accurate measure of 
the number of feet in each of those trees, and 
thereby show the exact value, and the space 
of ground they occupy. They are fifty or 
sixty feet in height, therefore it is but a fair 



GROWING GOLD. 65 

calculation to suppose the north tree will 
square seven inches at the end of forty-five 
feet ; thus, the contents in square feet will be 
ninety feet. The west tree is twelve feet by 
twenty-four inches = forty-eight feet. The 
south tree is also twelve feet, and a fraction 
more than twenty-four inches in girth, which 
is given in. It is but fair to observe, there is 
no allowance made for the bark in these 
measures, as the unmeasured timber, top 
wood, bark, &c. are of more value than the 
amount which would have been deducted for 
it. The north and south trees bend a little 
from each other, but so little as to be no 
impediment to their growth. There are but 
few such instances as this now to be found, 
therefore it ought to be preserved as a proof 
to all planters and managers of timber, that 
trees will grow to so large a size when close 
together. No doubt they were common in 
the last century. 

There would be great difficulty in thinning 
trees of this size when so close together : if 

F 



66 



GROWING GOLD. 



trees, seventy-five years old, are healthy and 
growing, although only ten or twelve feet 
apart, thinning them is of no consequence, as 
some will outgrow the others and become 
large trees ; so situated, the underlings will 
not decay until at a great age, unless under 
some very peculiar circumstances, and but 
little loss will be sustained by their remaining. 

The greater part of this place is surrounded 
by a belt, and most probably the north side 
was first planted ; there is the usual mixture 
of trees, — beech, birch, oak, white poplar, 
elm, ash, &c. which have been thinned without 
judgment. On the south side the following 
trees were measured, at eight feet from the 
ground, but an accurate date of this part of 
the belt could not be ascertained. 



Inches in 
circumference. 



Oak, 

North beech 
South ditto, 



34 



40 



34 



This proportion the oaks bear to the other 
trees throughout. Near the north gate is a 



GROWING GOLD. 67 

patch of trees, about an acre, planted, it was 
stated, forty-five years ago ; the trees consist 
principally of Spanish chesnut; there are 
also beech, birch, and a few oaks. 

Inches in 
circumference. 

Oak, branched and feathered, . . 33 



North Spanish chesnut, 37 

East ditto, 32 

South ditto, 50 

West ditto, 33 



Thus, the average circumference of the 
' four nearest Spanish chesnut is thirty-eight 
inches, it being evidently the crop intended ; 
they grow well together, but even under the 
disadvantage of being branched and feathered 
on the stem, from having too much space, 
the size of the oak, when compared with that 
of the other trees near it, varies so little, that 
the deficiency is amply compensated by its 
acknowledged superiority for general purposes. 
On the west side of this patch the trees are not 
so large, and are stunted from standing much 
thinner; several of the Spanish chesnuts 



68 



GROWING GOLD. 



are dead topped, branched, and feathered ; 
there are also two or three birch of con- 
siderable size. 

There is another patch of trees of the 
same age as the above on the south east side 
of the park, which grew very luxuriantly until 
thinned too much ; the trees stand at very 
irregular distances apart. 

Inches in 
circumference. 

Oak, 32 

North Spanish chesnut, . . 34 
South ditto, 38 

Some very conclusive evidence can be 
offered on a celebrated estate, of the impolicy 
of mixed plantations, if that from this estate 
should fail to be sufficient. 

Inches in circumference 
at eight feet high. 

Oak, 34 

North Spanish chesnut, . . 40 
South ditto, 35 

Before Spanish chesnut is extensively used 
in plantations, it ought to be ascertained 



GROWING GOLD. 69 

whether it will bear the bending for planking, 
and the battering of cannon, to which ships 
of war are liable ; this is doubtful, as it is very 
subject to split of itself ; therefore a cannon 
shot would do twenty times more damage to a 
ship built with it, than to one made of oak. 

There are several small plantations of 
recent date about this place, consisting of 
oak, Spanish chesnut, pines of various kinds, 
broad leafed elm, poplar, alder, &c. but they 
are all set too far apart in the first instance, 
so that none of their leading shoots are 
sufficiently protected from the wind ; and the 
space admits of the oak branching too much, 
hence, there is some allowance to be made for 
their not being so tall as the Spanish chesnuts. 
For the last three or four years those planta- 
tions have grown as well as such an arrange- 
ment would allow : but there is still little, if any 
probability, that the trees will grow to maturity. 

It may perhaps be stated that these plan- 
tations were made for the preservation of game ; 



70 



GROWING GOLD. 



a critical examination of them will prove that 
they are as unsuitable for this purpose as for 
growing timber; but, admitting some were 
made for the former purpose, others ought 
also to have arrangements suitable to the pro- 
. duction of timber. En passant — there is one 
circumstance connected with the preservation 
of game, which should incite inquiry ; eight out 
of ten of the murderous battles so frequently 
taking place between gamekeepers and poach- 
ers, generally happen when the latter are in 
pursuit of pheasants ; they are supplied with 
guns, which are often pointed at those who 
oppose them, and they trust to the shades of 
night to secure them from detection. A plan 
is ready to be submitted to the public for 
the preservation of pheasants, without night 
watchers of any kind : it conveys the strongest 
presumptive proof of its efficacy, and it can 
also be supported by extensive oral testimony. 
One hundred brace of birds might be kept in 
perfect security, in the place above alluded to, 
from October to March, without the slightest 
difficulty. When noblemen and landowners 



GROWING GOLD. 71 

are sitting in their drawing rooms, and hearing 
the report of guns from the poachers, in their 
home covers, they do not require to be told 
the amoimt of such an annoyance. Rearing 
pheasants to supply some covers near London 
might be made a source of great profit, as 
fourteen shillings per dozen have been given 
for the eggs of those birds, in order to rear 
young ones for such places, to the great en- 
couragement of poaching in the provinces. 
But we are digressing too far. 

On the north east side there is a planta- 
tion principally of oak, originally planted four 
feet apart, but it has been thinned irregularly, 
therefore it does not grow so well as if it had 
been planted thirty inches apart, or less ; every 
oak tree makes more head, the stems are small 
and short in proportion ; but what appears 
extraordinary, is, the edges of the plantations 
are thinnest of trees ! This is exactly contrary 
to every principle that experience furnishes, 
but it does not imply that the trees should 
be cleared away in the middle for a Potato 



72 



GROWING GOLD. 



Garden, as is the case here ; on the contrary, 
the trees in all plantations should stand closely 
together, and meet at the top. It is the duty 
of every person who has the care of such 
property, to examine it thoroughly at least 
once a year. He who fancies himself able 
to draw up a correct report of the state of 
a plantation, by merely riding round it, is 
assuredly one of the second-sighted school; 
it is admitted that it is not a very pleasant 
occupation to examine young plantations, 
especially in damp weather, but no one should 
be appointed to offices who is above doing 
the duty of them. 

Happening to remark to the head keeper 
that an extensive part of this place, now 
covered with rushes, fern, and bushes, would 
make a very valuable plantation, it much 
offended the gentleman ; why it should have 
had that effect, it is difficult to discover, 
unless he saw an encroachment on his six 
hundred pounds per annum, an abridgment 
of the pasturage of his numerous herd of 



GROWING GOLD. 73 

COWS, or it was likely to diminish the sport of 
rabbit shooting, with which he occasionally 
treated his cockney friends. As rabbits are 
very destructive to young trees, where they 
are numerous, regular warreners ought to be 
employed to keep them down : the skill of 
these men is extraordinary ; for instance, 
when a ferret is put into a burrow, the 
warrener places his ear on the ground, and 
keeps quietly shifting his position until 
from the noise which is conveyed by the 
earth, he finds he is exactly over the ferret 
and rabbit : he then digs them out, having 
not unfrequently to proceed to a depth of 
four or five feet. 

The place under consideration is the 
best possible for the display of skill, oak 
being the weed of the soil ; the picturesque 
doctors have had full liberty to exhibit their 
plans, but they have signally failed in their 
efforts : and all attempts to act in defiance 
of the general laws of nature will ever prove 
abortive. It is nothing else than playing at 



74 GROWING GOLD. 

growing oak trees : — where is the prospect 
of producing a rival to that of Hatfield Bog 
celebrity ? They who have the management 
of the timber in places of this kind, and who 
attend too much to the scenery, neglect one 
consideration which surely ought to be ap- 
parent in all their proceedings, namely, the 
future look of the place, as well as the 
present one : they should bear in mind that 
by cutting a glade here, an opening there, 
taking down a few trees to shew that spire 
or this steeple, and a windmill or two, the 
wind is admitted to the trees which remain ; 
they soon become dead topped and unsightly 
to all who admire healthy vegetation : posterity 
will have little to thank them for but a few 
decayed and mutilated stumps. Some may 
have an idea that such contrivances give an 
air of grandeur to a place ; it is only the 
appearance that plated articles bear upon 
a sideboard : — gratifying to none but novices. 

Possibly when the amount of the profit 
to be obtained by judicious management of 



GROWING GOLD. 75 

oak plantations is better understood, most of 
these evils will be remedied. 

The timber and plantations in some other 
Royal Parks are in quite as bad a state as 
this ; — there is not a single tree, from thirty to 
a hundred years old, in the parks which I have 
examined, growing at its full natural rate. 
It, perhaps, will be said, the intention is not 
to grow timber for profit in this place, but for 
ornament only; this admission is sufficient, 
because it must be granted that the finest 
specimens are the greatest ornament. These 
can only be grown under the most impenetrable 
shelter ; when a tree is full grown, then is the 
time to clear away the trees near it, so that 
it may be seen and contrasted with the round 
headed oak, or thorn bush in the distance. 

On the south side there is a plantation 
containing firs of six or seven years' grovfth, 
planted, as it was stated, because the soil is 
too poor to grow oak trees, yet there is an oak 
tree of considerable size growing in the middle 



76 GROWING GOLD. 

of it. The planter appears at length obliged 
to acknowledge his error, for during the last 
season some tall fast growing young oaks 
were taken from a rich soil and sheltered 
situations and put between the firs : this is 
not quite in accordance w^ith the opinion 
experience furnishes as to the best way to 
ensure a crop of oak trees on such a soil. 
It is admitted to be of a very inferior descrip- 
tion, but as there are oak trees of considerable 
size growing near the fence, as well as the 
one tree within it, proof is afforded that a 
crop may be grown upon it, if a proper system 
were to be pursued. It being nearly the most 
elevated situation in the park, consequently 
it is the wind which gives the old trees such a 
shattered and thriftless appearance. 

How the system of mixing so many kinds 
of trees in plantations became a general 
practice is not easily explained, as it does 
not appear ever to have been the case in any 
of the ancient woods and forests, in which 
there is reason to believe the trees grew 



GROWING GOLD. 77 

naturally ; whether they did so here or not 
I have no means of knowing ; it is however 
certain a good crop was raised, and there is 
not a single vestige of a pine stem of the 
same age as the old oaks in this place, which 
is a proof there were not any to draw them 
up ; indeed there is evidence sufficient to show 
the oaks originally stood very closely together. 
Yet, in defiance of this, in the belt and every 
plantation, the successive planters have 
thought it indispensable to mix all kinds of 
trees, regardless of the quality of the timber 
they produce. On some estates it has been 
the practice to plant two trees for nurses, and 
one'^oak, therefore to give all the oaks the 
benefit of one thinning, all the nurses are 
removed ; this gives the crop two thirds more 
room, usually from four feet to twelve. In 
many of these plantations the oak trees are 
completely overgrown ; some of them are 
very tall, others very short; the former are 
generally small stemmed and with a con- 
siderable number of branches. When the 
nurses are removed the wind has such power 



78 



GROWING GOLD. 



over them, the stems being weak, that the 
first gale bends them so much as to force 
their heads to the ground. It is somewhat 
singular that trees which grow in a manner 
that is calculated to do the least injury to the 
crop intended, should be so seldom, if ever 
used, namely, the small leafed elm ; its 
branches all grow upwards, none horizontally, 
therefore it does not impede the growth of the 
trees near it so much as the Scotch fir. 

The evils of mixed plantations are that 
some kinds of trees recover transplanting 
sooner than others, and there is not in all of 
them the same rate of growth afterwards, 
consequently the leaders of the festest 
growing trees suffer from not being sufficiently 
sheltered. Every time the wind blows 
they are whipped (as it is termed) and 
severely injured by the horizontal branches 
of the trees that grow against them, and which 
were at first planted for their protection. 
This is the case with Scotch fir when used 
for nurses with oak, it recovers transplanting 



GROWING GOLD. 79 

the second season and commences growing ; 
oak merely keeps alive, yet the Scotch fir is 
used for nurses in New Forest, &c. It may 
be asked, did any of the old oaks which have 
grown or are standing there require exotics to 
rear them to maturity? No, it must be 
answered ; therefore it is but just to presume 
that it is unnecessary, if not improper now. 

Some land draining done in this place 
displayed a want of common practical know- 
ledge in the person who set out the work : 
if it had been properly planned it would have 
been much more effective, and would have 
continued so more than double the time it 
now will, without incurring the expense of 
a shilling per acre more. 

This park has been supplied with deer 
from other places to the amount of nearly 
restocking it ; why it was necessary, perhaps 
the inspector would like to know ; but if the 
cause be allowed to continue, the park will 
require a similar supply in a few years. 



80 



GROWING GOLD. 



Frequent complaints have been made of 
the want of flavor in the venison, which may 
in some measure be accounted for. The 
keepers in the winter catch all the bucks* 
which they have to kill in the summer, and 
put them into paddocks to fatten, which they 
do by lying quiet, but they are compelled to 
subsist upon a coarse kind of grass without 
variety, unless it is some expensive artificial 
food. But they are in this manner much 
MORE EASILY KILLED than whcu ranging in 
a large park, selecting the sweetest and best 
herbage of all kinds. Were it not intruding 
too much on the duties of the inspector, a 
few additional hints could be offered to the 
rangers on this subject, to show that some 
improvement may probably be made in the 
flavor of the venison. It is admitted that 
there are good and bad farmers, and also 
superior systems of managing parks ; a brief 
statement of the prevailing errors now prac- 
tised would prove the folly of them, and the 
advantages of the best method, in a striking 

* This is done in a very bungling manner. 



GROWING GOLD. 



81 



point of view, the pecuniary part of it is not 
the least. A person well acquainted with 
the management of deer and parks could 
instantly discover any imperfect arrangement. 
There is a degree of folly in appointing a 
person to examine the abilities and conduct 
of others who is not an adept in all the 
details of the business he has to superintend. 



G 



82 



GROWING GOLDo 



CHAPTER IV. 



The following estates are private property, 
therefore the names of them are not given; 
but should an application be made to show 
the trees upon any of them, endeavour will 
be made to obtain permission from the owners. 

Estate, No. 4, Wood. 

On this estate are some very old treeSy 
principally oaks. There is ample evidence 
that they grew closely, intermixed with others 
of the same species, which were cut down at 
various periods. There are also some plan- 



GROWING GOLD. 83 

tations on the estate, for the ages of which I 
am indebted to a friend. 

No. 1. — An oak plantation of twenty-six 
years' growth ; the circumference of the trees, 
at six feet from the ground, varies from 
twenty to twenty-six inches. They were 
originally set three feet apart, and at a 
moderate calculation are worth six pence 
each, bark and top included. 

No. 2. — Fine common British oak, forty- 
three inches in circumference, or twelve feet 
by nine and a half inches = seven and a 
half feet, at three shillings and six pence 
per foot = one pound six shillings and three 
pence, exclusive of top and bark. 

Inches in 
circumference. 

North, edge of belt, . . 

East, Larch, 50 

South, Sycamore, ... 51 

West, Larch, 42 



These are of fifty-six years' growth. 



84 



GROWING GOLD. 



No. 3.— Are the best specimens of seventy 
five years' growth that have been met with ; 
they are only single trees, and therefore do 
not afford clear proof of the average rate of 
the growth of oak trees, as the largest of 
them is most sheltered and may be con- 
sidered the nearest to it. The circumference 
is seventy-two inches, at six feet from the 
ground, and seven feet eight inches at one 
foot from it. 



Estate, No. 7, Wood. 

This wood comprehends at least one 
hundred acres, and the produce of it is the 
usual description of oak trees and underwood ; 
the former stand from fifteen to fifty feet 
apart; and in some places only as many 
yards intervene. For instance, on the south 
side of a tree there is another tree, only five 
yards from it, whilst, on the north side, the 
nearest is fifty or sixty yards. They are 
low and round headed : on the south west 
side of the wood they are still smaller and 



GROWING GOLD. 85 

lower, and show every symptom of injury 
from the wmd ; being mutilated and moss 
grown. These trees make the least possible 
progress indicative of being alive. A reverend 
gentleman who has some woods of his own, a 
few miles distant, is of opinion that the failure 
of the crop of oak in this place is occasioned 
by the wetness of the soil. In answer to this, 
it may be stated that the oak underwood is 
healthy, the stems bright, clean, and without 
moss, and the extensive fall of large trees, 
not quite fifty years ago, proves the soil to 
be suitable for growing oak trees to perfec- 
tion. The owner, however, does not give this 
evidence due attention, by his planting ash 
for stubs. Possessing some fame as an 
agriculturist, he is taken as an authority on 
the cultivation of timber. But there is a 
wide difference between growing wheat and 
growing oak trees ; his ability as a farmer is 
admitted ; but at the same time it is con- 
tended there is no evidence on his own estate 
in favor of his knowing anything of the 
principle of the right cultivation of oak trees. 



86 GROWING GOLD. 

He may be a disciple of the person who 
recommends thinning to thirty-five feet apart, 
but it is not stated at what size and age this 
is to take place ; and as it is in defiance of 
the evidence of all kinds here given it does 
not require further notice. The oak trees 
upon this property grow so slowly, there is 
very little perceptible increase, although they 
have been closely observed many years. On 
a recent ride through this wood, there were 
several cut down ; many of them squared 
only six or eight inches ; and yet they were 
decayed at the lower end, which corroborates 
the opinion before expressed, that injury to 
the leading shoot causes immediate decay at 
the centre of the stem. 

A certain landowner who has an extensive 
tract of poor sandy land planted with oak 
trees, has taken much trouble to circulate a 
statement that wet land, namely, adhesive 
clay soils, &c. will not grow oak timber of 
good quality. His testimony is clearly liable 
to the suspicion of being biased by interested 



GROWING GOLD. S7 

motives ; therefore not worth much, if any 
attention, except, indeed, as a proof that oak 
will grow on poor sandy soils. If there had 
been any justice in the opinion, that oak 
grown on light sands is of superior quality, 
it no doubt would have obtained a better 
price in the market. The soil of this estate 
is an adhesive clay, as is also that of many 
hundred acres of wood land in the neighbour- 
hood, on which oak timber of the best quality 
has been cut. 

Estate, No, 24, Plantation. 

This is a plantation of considerable extent, 
and it furnishes a large mass of evidence, to 
strengthen, if necessary, that already given. 
There were several kinds of trees originally 
set, but the pines have as usual overgrown 
the native trees, with the exception of a few 
instances. 

Inches in 
circumference. 

No. 1.— Oak, 29 

North, Spruce, 9 feet from oak, 32 



88 GROWING GOLD. 

Inches in 
circumference. 

East, Spruce, 18 feet from oak, 12^ 

South, ditto, 21 ditto, 27 

West, Scotch, 18 ditto, 35 

The oak average three inches in circum- 
ference more than the pines. 



Inches in 
circumference. 



No. 2.— Oak, 38 

North, Larch, 33 feet from oak, 29 

East, ditto,. . 12 ditto, 33 

South, ditto, 18 ditto, 29 

West, ditto, 18 ditto, 27 



Hence, it appears, that the four pines 
average eight and a half inches less than the 
oak. 

Inches in 
circumference. 



No. 3.— Oak, 30 

North, Scotch, 27 feet from oak, 36 

East, Spruce, 27 ditto, 34 

South, Larch, 21 ditto, 23 

West, Scotch, 10 ditto, 35 



The average is two inches more than the oak 



GROWING GOLD. 89 

Inches in 
circumference. 

No. 4.— Oak, 39 

North, Larch, 20 feet from oak, 40 

East, Spruce, 15 ditto, 31 

South, Larch, 13 ditto, 37^ 

West, Spruce, 30 ditto, 32 

The average is four inches less than the 
oak. The crop was no doubt materially 
injured by the trees having been thinned at 
very irregular distances. Unless otherwise 
specified, the measurement was taken at six 
feet from the ground. 

Estate, No. 30, Wood. 

This wood consists of three hundred acres, 
and, till within a year or two, it included 
many acres more ; it is therefore particularly 
entitled to an accurate description. The 
underwood consists of hazel, oak, maple, 
white and black thorns, and a small portion 
of ash : the oak underwood is bright, free 
from moss, healthy, and making considerable 
length of wood annually. 



^0 GROWING GOLD. 

The largest of the oak trees are underlings 
of the former crop, and there are some which 
were making considerable progress under its 
shelter that are now completely stunted, moss 
grown, twigged, and dead topped : this wood 
proves that it is not only extent, but 
PROXIMITY also, which gives protection to 
growing trees. When, as in forests, they grow 
naturally, the stems of the trees for perhaps 
some miles afford impervious shelter ; one 
acre only, bearing one hundred large trees 
upon it, would be a pretty good screen, but 
if a square mile were covered with large trees, 
the shelter would be complete. 

Estate, No. 42, Plantation. 

This estate is in the county of Norfolk, 
in which an extraordinary number of acres 
of inferior soil have been planted w'ith various 
kinds of trees. Where much, of any de- 
scription of work, is going on, superior systems 
are expected to prevail, but nothing appeared 
in this district to show better management 



GROWING GOLD. 



91 



in planting trees than where the business is 
less practised. It appears to be the general 
system to mix all kinds of trees, and the 
situations were frequently the worst that 
could be selected ; the size of the trees when 
set out did not correspond, nor were they 
close enough, — the land being sandy, the 
roots and fibres had but a very slight^ hold 
of the soil; and the opening which the 
oaks and other deciduous trees make whilst 
they are leafless, gives the wind ample power 
over the spruce and Scotch trees, effectually 
to impede their growth. 

A large plantation of Scotch firs, set in 
rows from four to five feet apart, looked very 
sickly and thriftless, although in a valley. 
Planters do not heed what the wind millers 
tell them, — that the wind is sharper in a 
valley than on a level country. The system 
of two pines and one oak was observed during 
the day's ride from plantation to plantation. 
Some good oak trees were indeed observed 
on one estate, and only one ; and in perfect 



92 



GROWING GOLD. 



contrast, immediately adjoining, were several 
wretchedly managed pine plantations. 

UNDER OR BRUSH WOOD. 

It appears by a provincial newspaper 
that a noble Earl has sold some underwood 
of twelve years' growth at sixteen pounds 
per acre ; but it does not pay for growing 
even at this price, as the land on which it 
grew would have let for more than twenty-five 
shillings per acre, per annum; the interest 
and compound interest of which, clear of all 
deductions, make the. amount, at the end of 
twelve years, considerably more than the sum 
obtained for the underwood. 



But taking another view of the case, most 
probably the underwood which obtained this 
high price consisted principally of ash poles. 
There can be no doubt of their being more 
useful than hazel rods and white thorn 
bushes ; therefore, why not grow the former ? 
The practice of making gate hurdles for 



GROWING GOLD. 93 

folding sheep with split ash and oak poles is 
becoming general, and renders this arrange- 
ment the more necessary, and compels wood 
agents to alter their plans, as woven hurdles 
are more expensive in the end, and cannot 
be repaired. It is admitted by all writers 
that trees increase at a greater rate as they 
grow larger ; therefore, if an acre of ash 
poles be cut at twelve years' growth, they 
probably are increasing at twelve times 
greater rate per annum than during the first 
year of their growth ; consequently, by cutting 
them at this age, there is a great loss to the 
owner. 

They who take the trouble to investigate, 
will easily satisfy themselves that the two 
crops, namely timber and underwood, cannot 
be grown to perfection upon the same land, at 
the same time ; one of them must suffer ; the 
hazel, thorns, ash, &c. will not grow without 
light and air. The leading shoot of no fast 
growing tree can ascend unless completely 
sheltered. 



94 



GROWING GOLD. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE GROWTH OF OAK. 

It may be seen that the circumference of 
oak trees is so near to that of the pine class, 
Spanish chesnut, and other fashionable trees, 
standing within a few feet of them, that oak 
can be no longer considered a slow growing 
tree: the deficiency, whenever it occurs, is 
occasioned by their not bearing transplanting 
so well as many other species ; a disadvantage 
never to be overcome when surrounded by 
other kinds of trees which recover from 
transplantation earlier, and, as a natural 



GROWING GOLD. 



95 



consequence, overgrow the family of oaks 
which they were intended to nurse. 

Yet, even under the unnatural, mixed 
system, there is ample proof of a great rate 
of growth, equal in circumference to the 
pines ; the latter grow to a greater length of 
stem, but in this stormy climate it is in reality 
no advantage; in fact, it furnishes strong 
reason against their general adoption. They 
certainly cannot arrive at maturity as single 
trees, nor indeed in numbers so small as 
have been experimented upon on many oc- 
casions. They do not become bush headed ; 
nor do they recoil from the wind, and continue 
to grow slowly, like oaks which are some- 
times found to have adapted themselves to the 
situation in which they are placed, but they 
decay and die. 

The leading shoot of a healthy young oak 
tree, of one year's growth, requires to be 
described, and it will at once be seen that 
the advice as to the necessity of shelter 



96 



GROWING GOLD. 



deserves all the attention which we have 
endeavoured to attract to it. The one about 
to be described has not been selected for its 
great length, it being only forty-four inches 
long : whereas Forsyth mentions one six feet 
long. 

It has no branches from it, but has fifty- 
eight leaves upon it, four of which are seven 
inches long and four wide ; these are in the 
middle of the shoot; the rest of the leaves 
gradually decrease to half the size of the 
large ones : they have no tail like those of 
the trembling poplar, which allow the leaves 
to turn edgewise to let off the wind, therefore 
as it is received upon the leaves of oak 
trees, its full force is immediately con- 
veyed to the stem. While such a shoot is 
growing, more than the upper half of it is 
unripe wood or vegetable, and is thickly set 
with leaves, consequently as pliant to the 
least force or pressure as the stem of corn or 
grass, and from this cause it cannot ascend, 
unless completely screened from the wind. 



GROWING GOLD. 



97 



From the centre of this shoot, in the 
following year, another springs forth, and 
which, if equally sheltered, grows like the 
preceding one. The formation of a shoot 
appears to be a continued lengthening, incre- 
ment, or unfolding from the top of it. They 
will produce a few branches below the joint, 
but the shoot will ascend in the same manner 
as the former one, covered also with leaves ; 
but if these shoots are injured, they produce 
branches below the part affected, and the 
succeeding growth of the principal shoot or 
stem is proportionably less ; sometimes only 
one is thrown out, but frequently more, so 
that in reality it has several leading shoots 
instead of one. As the leading shoot of one 
year is the stem of future years, it follows that 
the height and size of the stem of every tree 
depend on these shoots ; it is therefore essen- 
tial to arrange that they may be able to grow 
to their full extent and be perfectly matured. 

According to Du Hamel, Dr. Hope, Sir 
J. E. Smith, and others, the increase of the 

H 



98 GROWING GOLD. 

size of a tree is by a fluid or sap rising 
between the bark and the wood, and which 
first forms the inner silky bark or liber; 
these layers form into rings, tubes, or vessels, 
of which the whole vegetable body is an 
assemblage, and that the most vigorous trees 
sooner make the most perfect wood. — Smith's 
Intro. Bot, p. 33, 34, 36. 

Therefore, if Messrs. Jesse and Withers 
are right in their statements of the rapid 
growth of oak trees in the period they give, 
it follows that a healthy tree would continue, 
if sufficiently protected, to increase at a 
compound rate in every part, at the same 
time ; consequently, it is possible that it does 
not require much more than double the time 
the trees of the just named gentlemen had 
to grow in, to be as large as the Hatfield 
Bog and Selbourne oaks. It clearly ap- 
pears that the silky bark is formed quite 
round each tree, and it is equally so that, 
however high they are, the sap ascends to 
the whole length of them every spring; 



GROWING GOLD. 



99 



therefore the layers of new wood are formed 
all over the tree ; hence it follows, that 
the larger the original shoot and the more 
vigorous it continues, the larger is the quan- 
tity of wood matured in a given time. 

When the wind is strong, the leading 
shoots of those trees which are exposed to 
it, continue, perhaps for several days in suc- 
cession, bending from a sixteenth to as much 
as half a circle ; this impedes the circulation 
of the sap, injures the tubes and vessels of 
the shoots of the latest growth, and the 
stagnation of the fluids is the consequence : 
hence, the tree in reality becomes a mass of 
disease. 

Matthews, it appears, from the foregoing, 
is entitled to no commendation for his plan of 
training plank timber ; because he cannot, by 
merely cutting off a few side branches, force 
trees to grow upwards. Indeed, so ineffectual 
is this pruning, in almost every case where 
a branch is cut off a tree, that two or three 



100 



GROWING GOLD. 



others shoot out, and there is nothing gained 
by it. As there is so foiinidable a host of 
advocates in its favor, they should show some- 
thing in the shape of historical proofs of its 
utility : state, for instance, which of the giants 
of the forest was trained and trimmed by the 
ancient Britons : — this they will not attempt ; 
they have no records, no traditions of so 
early a date. They may yet be forced to 
admit that it is introduced as a kind of help 
to the trees overgrown by the pines and 
others in the mixed plantations. 

It is impossible to examine even this 
brief description of the manner in which th-e 
giants of the vegetable kingdom are formed, 
without admiring the wisdom and skill of the 
Almighty Creator of them, and feeling a deep 
reverential gratitude for His having combined 
so large a mass of matter, so indispensible 
to the use and comfort of mankind. 

By advocating the principle that so l^rge 
a number of trees should be planted ufon an 



GROWING GOLD. 



101 



ncre of land, it perhaps may be supposed 
that no attention has been given to the 
doctrine of the use of leaves to the vegetable 
kingdom; the question has been considered, 
as far as it applies to the growth of timber. 
Where trees of only one kind are planted, 
each sends out an equal portion of branches 
and leaves, according to the space each tree 
has, and the stem grows at a less rate in 
proportion to the number of branches and 
leaves. The sap ascends the stem of a tree, 
and circulates to the extremity of the branches, 
to cause the leaves to grow, therefore it does 
not require the effect of the atmosphere upon 
the leaves to cause the fluids to ascend ; this 
shows there is reason to conclude that a very 
large number of leaves is less necessary to 
the existence of trees than is maintained by 
some wTiters ; they no doubt are necessary 
to keep the trees in health, and they will not 
exist without them. All that is contended 
for, is, that when a tree has many branches, 
consequently a superabundance of leaves, 
its sap is exhausted in their production, 



102 GROWING GOLD. 

and its growth of stem is proportionably 
less. 

MAKING PLANTATIONS. 

It might be thought that the object of 
this work was but half accomplished, if no 
attempt were made to state the most advan- 
tageous system of growing timber. The 
directions must of course be general, because 
there are so many different soils and situations 
in which a different arrangement might be 
necessary, to render it probable that a crop 
would grow to maturity. It should on every 
occasion be understood, before any tree is 
planted, what the average height is in its 
native regions, and whether it has the power 
to adapt itself to its new situation. There 
are many plantations of a mixture of the pine 
class, made upon the exposed peaks of hills ; 
when the trees reach to forty or fifty feet 
high, they suddenly cease to grow higher, 
and throw out secondary leading shoots and 
large branches, which give the wind double 



GROWING GOLD. 



103 



power over them ; they then decay and are 
blown down, although the pines have not 
reached one third of their full size. 

The loss to the owner is very considerable 
when this is the case ; and, although of 
common occurrence, it has hitherto excited 
little, if any inquiry. 

Suppose a plantation of one hundred 
acres was determined upon and left to my 
management, the first care would be to find 
out and report the best situation. If agreed 
upon, make a good fence of dry stone, paling, 
or quick, as the climate and situation ad- 
mitted : destroy all the rabbits in and near 
it, and arrange for keeping them down. If 
many hares, dress the quick the first autumn 
or two with a composition of tar, soot, &c. 
to keep them from destroying it. 

The hard, stoney, and rooted parts trench 
deep, and pick out the roots of nettles and 
large weeds; the level parts plough. Draw 



104 



GROWING GOLD. 



a deep furrow with a common plough, then 
put a strong one into the furrow and go as 
deep with it as possible, the moulds of the 
second falling upon the sod of the first ; or 
use the subsoil plough. 

The youngest plants, from eighteen inches 
to two feet high, are preferable to any other ; 
they are taken up from the nursery bed 
with less injury than larger ones; they are 
cheaper, and sooner recover transplanting 
when set out, from possessing all their roots, 
having a firmer hold of the earth, but few 
leaves upon them, and being not high enough 
to be shaken by the wind. 

If the situation was exposed on the west 
side, it would certainly be advantageous to 
plant the first half dozen yards with trees 
which bear the wind better than oak, such as 
small leaved elm, beech, &c. varying them 
according to the soil and situation, and also 
their number. It would be an advantage 
to begin on this side, because, if so, the 



GROWING GOLD. 105 

outside trees would screen the inner ones. 
The trees should be set irregularly, and not 
in rows, as the leading shoots do not receive 
protection, the current of wind rushing along 
between the rows. 

The oak plants should be at least seven 
thousand per acre ; the thicker they are 
planted the sooner they recover transplanting. 
The four feet apart system requires two 
thousand seven hundred and twenty-two trees 
per acre ; the three feet, four thousand eight 
hundred and forty trees, and the number 
recommended will be two thousand one 
hundred and sixty trees more than the 
last number ; the shelter to be obtained 
by the greater number of plants must b^ 
obvious. 

It is not to be supposed that the whole 
would be done in one season ; continuing the 
planting of trees late in the spring must be 
condemned, because many failures have been 
witnessed from this cause. 



106 



GROWINCx GOLD. 



The outside trees would probably require 
putting straight and treading round the roots, 
particularly if there had been any rough 
winds during the first spring and summer. 

The number of trees per acre will perhaps 
be objected to, as wasteful and useless, but 
it must be remembered, the remains of the 
woods which have descended to the present 
generation have been subject to periodical 
thinnings for an indefinite period; in proof 
of which, most local histories of wood-land 
property furnish accounts of great falls of 
timber, at various periods ; the young trees 
which grew amongst thena were sheltered by 
the old ones, and formed a more complete 
screen for the leading shoots than so large an 
assemblage of them. It is to be remembered, 
that in the open and exposed parts of the 
wood-land there was a succession of thorns, 
hazel, &c. springing up, which completely 
protected the oak saplings. 



GROWING GOLD. 



107 



CHAPTER VL 



EVIDENCE ON THE 
RATE OF GROWTH OF THE OAK. 

Pontey, in page ninety-six, states that 
larch and oak flourish equally. 

Matthews, in page forty, admits the rapid 
growth of oak timber after it has attained a 
certain size. 

Withers, in his pamphlet on the cultivation 
of timber, states, that nearly two hundred 



108 



GROWING GOLD. 



feet of solid timber were grown in eighty 
years. — Matthews, p. 200. 

Jesse, in page one hundred and forty-six 
of the third volume of Gleanings in Natural 
History, states, that an oak tree, planted in 
one thousand seven hundred and twenty, 
measured in one thousand seven hundred and 
ninety, at one foot from the ground, twelve 
feet six inches in circumference." 

Hillyard, in page seventy-one of his Prac- 
tical Farmer, states, that "some thus em- 
ployed might live to enjoy the same gratifying 
feeling that Mr. Coke experienced about 
three years ago, when he, with Lady Ann 
and four of his sons, was on board a vessel, 
launched at Wells, which was built of oaks, 
produced from acorns of his own planting." 

The trees described in page eighty-four 
are known by many old people, whose united 
testimony proves the age of them : they show 
the natural rate of growth imperfectly, as 



GROWING GOLD. 



109 



they were set originally twenty-one feet 
apart, and so continue to this day. The 
largest is somewhat more sheltered than 
many of them, which fully accounts for its 
superiority of growth : if it had been closely 
surrounded by other trees, it no doubt would 
have been from sixty to seventy feet in height ; 
the whole of the length of the stem is twenty 
feet, the girth eighteen inches, which is equal 
to forty-five feet of square timber ; reckoning 
the same at three shillings and six pence per 
foot, with the addition of two shillings and 
six pence for top and bark, makes the tree 
worth eight pounds. It is clear, from an 
examination of these trees, that four hundred 
of them would grow to this size, at half the 
distance apart, seeing that there are as many 
squares of ten feet six inches each, per acre ; 
thus their value would be three thousand 
two hundred pounds, in seventy-five years. 

It is to be lamented that Mr. Jesse did 
not give full particulars of his tree, instead 
of so brief a description ; as it unquestionably 



iJO GROWING GOLD. 

is a full grown specimen. It must, however, 
be supposed to have had a long pine-like 
stem, from sixty to seventy feet high at least, 
perhaps something more, because the history 
of all the large oaks on record, shows a great 
length of stem, and that they tapered very 
gradually. Now the girth, at the base of the 
tree alluded to, is thirty-eight inches, therefore 
it would not, at the end of forty-five feet, be 
reduced to half, or nineteen inches : taking 
the dimensions at this rate, the girth, in the 
middle, is twenty-eight inches, which makes 
the contents two hundred and forty-five feet 
of solid timber, grown in seventy years ; this 
exceeds Mr. Withers's tree. 

Averaging the rate of growth of these two 
trees, their contents may be taken at two 
hundred feet each, say in eighty years. 

Were the testimony of these two gentlemen 
wholly unsupported, still, as professional cul- 
tivators of timber, they would be entitled to 
some credit. Nevertheless, they clearly prove 



GROWING GOLDc 111 

that oak is not of so slow a growth as it has 
been generally considered. It is however 
desirable to have all the evidence that can be 
obtained on the point, and it is therefore 
natural to desire the testimony of My Lord 
of Leicester," who, it appears, can give positive 
evidence as to the fact, but the wish is vain. 

Enough, however, has been stated to show 
the importance of the proper management of 
this kind of property. Some large land- 
owners have two or three thousand acres of 
wood lands, game covers, &c. and perhaps 
more : it is, therefore, most material to them 
to know whether the trees in those woods and 
plantations which are reserved solely for the 
profits to be derived from the growth of 
timber, will, in the same period of time, be 
worth eight pounds or thirty-five pounds each : 
more particularly when it is remembered 
that the probability, if not the certainty, 
is, that to have trees of the latter value, the 
crop should be four times the number of the 
former, and that the larger is the natural size. 



112 GROWING GOLD. 

As the evidence is given as it is found, 
with references attached to it, the value is 
considerably enhanced. 

Withers accounts for the rapid growth of 
his tree, but he appears to have let the truth 
escape by accident, without being fully aware 
of the cause of its rapid growth. It stood 
in one of the sweetest sunny spots of the 
sweetest valley of our Highlands." He, how- 
ever, attributes the rapid growth to the 
adjacent spring of water. 

Mr. Jesse gives only the words before 
quoted, and no more; the omission of the 
inspector of parks and palaces, in not having 
drawn the obvious inferences from the tree 
he mentions, is very remarkable. These 
statements place him in a peculiar position, 
and particularly so when it is taken as a 
guide to the state of the plantations made 
under his directions. The former shows he 
thinks the oak a fast growing tree ; the 
latter that his opinion is, it is a slow growing 



GROWING GOLD. 113 

one, as lie has planted all kinds of trees 
around, to draw them up. But this is not all, 
for the old oak trees, growing on all sides of 
his plantations, prove that they grew un- 
mixed with other trees. 

The great advantage of having the best 
systems adopted by the office of woods and 
forests, would be, an immense revenue from 
the worst soils, and it would show to others 
what may be done most profitably, so that 
noblemen and landowners might have, by a 
reference to this department, the best and 
most correct advice ; this would ensure a crop 
of good timber throughout the empire. 

The honorable gentleman did not antici- 
pate that his statements would ever be con- 
sidered of the importance which is now 
attached to them, nor conceive they would be 
applied as weapons against himself, to prove 
his want of official ability. From the promi- 
nent post he occupies, the public have a 

right to expect that the plantations under 
I 



114 



GROWING GOLD. 



his care should show great skill and progress, 
as an example to all Her Majesty's subjects : 
oak timber being so indispensible in the 
British Isles, He has adopted all the un- 
tural systems pursued by private individuals. 
The honorable gentleman can have no excuse 
to offer, as the trees required to be grown are 
the weed of the soil which he has to plant : 
and even, if this was not the case, the quality 
of the soil is very superior to many places 
where large oak trees have been grown. 
Where there is an anxious desire to follow 
Nature's laws, there seldom is much difficulty 
in discovering them. 

If a servant in a mercantile establishment 
showed similar remissness, most probably the 
principal would soon appoint some one in his 
place, with more penetration than to convict 
himself of wilful blindness, in the most im- 
portant part of his duty. 

It is not known how the officers graduate 
for appointments in this department, but 



GROWING GOLD. 



115 



surely they should be compelled to produce 
something to testify their acquaintance with 
the details of the duties required of them. 
If inspectors and surveyors are necessary, it 
is equally essential that they should be well 
acquainted with the details of the business 
they have to superintend. Practical know- 
ledge is considered necessary in every other 
department of the government, and why 
not in this ? since the failure of the growing 
crop of timber proves it to be so much 
wanted. Billington, who appears to have 
been an inspector, or something of the kind, 
in Dean Forest, says, they planted and re- 
planted trees, persevering even to the fifth 
time, but all would not avail." Having seen 
failures from the mismanagement of private 
property where the land had been planted 
three times, it is but fair to assume it to be 
the case in Dean Forest. It is not to be 
wondered at, as Billington was a gardener : 
he might have been an adept at ''forcing 
tender exotics," and yet entirely unacquainted 
with the nature of our native trees, as it 



116 



GROWING GOLD. 



does not form part of the education of the 
profession. 

It is cheerfully admitted that the pro- 
ceedings of the Royal Society contain some 
Tery valuable papers on this subject. The 
practical men do not heed them ; they re- 
quire a rougher hand to point out their errors, 
and fearlessly to tell him who errs, " Thou art 
the man and should he dispute the point, 
let him call on that society to adjudge the 
question. Gentle admonition is of little 
avail with those old fashioned woodmen, and 
modern land agents, who now have the care 
of the property whence the navies of the 
last centuries ^vere produced, or they would 
have had something more to show than 
short stems, bushy tops, and dead leading 
shoots. Sleeping over the paltry revenue 
that the periodical cuttings of the underwood 
afford, they appear to be unaware that the 
hazel, thorn, &c. are but the spontaneous 
nurses of the giants of the vegetable kingdom. 



GROWING GOLD. 



117 



CHAPTER VIL 



ON THE QUALITY OF 
DIFFERENT SPECIES OF OAK. 

According to the most eminent botanical 
writers, the sessiliflora oak is propagated in 
the New Forest, and several other places 
mentioned by them, the timber of which 
they state to be very inferior* for ship 
building, and for other exposed or important 
purposes. It is cultivated on certain estates 
too, as is also the Turkish species — the timber 
of which is quite as inferior. The latter I 
have myself seen in two of the royal parks. 

^ Sir J. E. Smith's English Flora, vol. 4, p. 148—50. 



118 



GROWING GOLD. 



They are easily discovered by the botanical 
descriptions : the latter species can be iden- 
tified by the twigs and branches, and also 
by the roughness of the bark on the lower 
part of the stem, at any season of the year 
while the trees are young. There are state- 
ments that the different species of oak can 
be distinguished by the character, flash, or 
marks across the grain, when specimens are 
planed and polished : but individual trees of 
each species have more or less character, 
therefore there is no dependence to be placed 
on the quality of oak timber, unless it is 
examined by a competent person whilst it is 
standing. 

The evidence before the committee of the 
House of Commons, on shipwrecks, gives a 
much less durability to foreign oak than to 
British timber ; therefore it is likely to be of 
the inferior species of oak, as it abounds 
on the continent, especially in the German 
forests. A small part of Mr. Symonds's 
evidence ought to be known to all : " he has 



GROWING GOLD. 119 

heard of a ship, built at Dundee, of Stettin 
timber and Dantzic plank, rotting after three 
years; has known no such rapid decay in 
English timber ; thinks the dry rot occurring 
in the latter is rather an exception than a 
rule." 

The botanical writers alluded to, are, Ray, 
Martin, and Sir J. E. Smith, authorities not to 
be treated lightly, nor by any with impunity. 
An able writer in the Quarterly Review (No. 
77, p. 22) advocates the claim of these authors 
to attention ; yet the advice is unheeded, 
although the carpenters upon those estates 
where the sessiliflora and Turkish species 
are grown, are willing testimonies of the 
inferiority of the timber, and they fully 
corroborate this writer and the botanists : on 
one occasion it was stated, that "a piece of 
deal might as well be put into the ground, 
as it would last nearly as long." If a tree 
of either species is mixed wdth the British 
kind, in the construction of shipping, the 
former is likely to be decayed, while the 



120 



GROWING GOLD. 



latter will remain quite sound ; consequently, 
if a vessel thus constructed should get into 
difficulties in rough weather, the unsound 
timbers, by giving way, may occasion a 
frightful loss, both of life and property. Is 
the New Forest clear of these impostors to 
true value ? The authorities there ought to 
state to parliament and the public the answer 
to this question. 

Sunderland is become the greatest ship 
building port in the world, there being at 
this time no less than ninety-eight large 
vessels building on the Weir." — Cambridge 
Chronicle, 7th April, 1838. 

It was said by a reverend gentleman, who 
is well acquainted Avith the county of Durham, 
and to whom I read the above, that it could 
not be from the superabundance of oak 
timber grown on the banks of the Weir, or 
near it." It is therefore natural to inquire 
whence the supply is obtained. A glance at 
the map of Europe shows the proximity of 



GROWING GOLD. 121 

the Baltic. If these ships are built of the 
sessiliflora oak, the use of such a material 
may be a saving to the builder, but it in- 
creases the necessity for the insurance of 
them, and a greater rate ought to be charged : 
but it is a question of considerable importance 
whether ships which have ceased to be sea- 
worthy are not often insured for more than 
they are really worth, and then sent to sea, 
regardless of the lives of the crew : if this is 
not the case, shipowners are grossly belied. 
Surely there ought to be some penalty in- 
flicted on those who cultivate the "Impostors" 
in these islands : at any rate they ought not 
to be found in the royal parks. By Lloyd's 
list it appears that in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and twenty-nine, six hundred 
and seventy-seven British ships were totally 
lost. 

In proof of these statements the following 
is given : — 

Extract of a report of a select committee 
appointed to inquire into the causes of the 



122 



GROWING GOLD. 



increased number of shipwrecks. The sub- 
committee of Lloyd's addressed a letter to 
the Lords of the Admiralty, who consulted 
the officers of the principal dock yards, and 
returned the following answer, signed, John 
Barrow." 

''Department of the Surveyors of the Navy, 
Admiralty, 29th October, 1835. — In obedience 
to the directions contained in their lordships' 
order of the fifth of June last, to see if I 
could make any satisfactory report from the 
several yards, respecting the durability of 
oak timber, I beg to transmit, on the other 
side, an abstract statement of the said profes- 
sional officers' opinions thereon, which their 
lordships will observe is very conflicting." 



GROWING GOLD. 123 



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124 GROWING GOLD. 

This fully justifies the writer of the 
Quarterly in the opinion he had formed ; — 
there is too much reason to believe that the 
numerous complaints that were heard about 
our ships being infested with what was called, 
improperly enough, the dry rot, were owing 
to the introduction of the sessiliflora species 
of oak into the naval dock yards, where, we 
understood, the distinction was not even sus- 
pected." — Quarterly Review, No, 77, 22 — 3. 

It is a somewhat singular fact that the 
estate on which the largest sessiliflora oaks 
have been observed, is generally considered 
to be managed in the best manner, yet the 
timber is as thriftless as on many estates of 
less note, and the trees which produce timber 
of inferior quality (pines, white beech, &c.) 
bear a large proportion to the whole. 

The United States' navy is built of the 
quercus virens, commonly called the live oak, 
but sometimes the hemispherical. — See New 
York Times, 



GROWING GOLD. 125 

It will, perhaps, be said, that if every 
owner of an estate grow oak timber, there 
will be a superabundance. It may be stated 
in answer, that almost every person is a 
consumer ; that it is the best known timber 
for general purposes ; and, that the contin- 
uance of the quantity of timber imported 
depends upon several contingencies, therefore 
liable at all times to interruptions ; and these 
are most likely to happen when it may be 
the most needed ; that is, in the event, or 
even the prospect of a war. It has been 
hinted, in a useful publication, that America 
may, at no very remote period, cease to be able 
to export timber to the extent it now does, at 
the present price, and that the " three hun- 
dred sail of shipping in the Saint Laurence" 
may be unable to complete their cargoes pro- 
fitably ; therefore, these considerations furnish 
some grounds for attaching much more impor- 
tance to this subject, than it appears entitled 
to at the first glance ; and they afford a fair 
presumption that the price of British oak 
timber will not depreciate. 



126 



GROWING GOLD. 



CHAPTER VIII, 



DEMAND FOR TIMBER. 



The average duration of shipping has of 
course been ascertained, so that in a given 
time the whole of the royal and commercial 
navies* now in existence will cease to be sea 
worthy. The prospective demand for oak 
timber is therefore for this single purpose 
immense, and does not depend upon con- 
tingencies ; or, if it do, the contingencies 
will be found much fevv^er than most of the 



* In 1826, the latter consisted of twenty thousand four hundred and 
sixty-nine vessels, exclusive of those belonging to the Channel Islands and 

British plantations. ' \ 



GROWING GOLD. 127 

arrangements of mankind are subject to. 
England, if she value her own existence, 
must keep a watchful eye upon her shipping ! 

The amount of duty paid on the importa- 
tion of foreign timber, for the year ending 
fifth of January, 1837, was one million, five 
hundred and thirty-seven thousand, four hun- 
dred and sixty-eight pounds. If this is upon 
an average twenty-five per cent, of the actual 
cost to the consumers, the sum of six million, 
one hundred and forty-nine thousand, eight 
hundred and seventy-two pounds, in that 
year, was drawn out of the pockets of the 
inhabitants of these islands for this article, 
and lost to the landowners. The actual per 
centage of the duty cannot be stated, because 
consumers living in or near seaports, buy 
of importers : timber consumed inland has 
additional charges for carriage, merchants' 
profits, &c. which reduce the per centage of 
the duty upon the cost of it. Taking the 
duty on oak and fir, from the colonies, at 
about eight per cent, and on that from the 

K 



128 



GROWING GOLD, 



Baltic at thirty-six per cent, to the consumers, 
it would probably be near the amount ; the 
quantity from the colonies is about two-thirds 
of the whole. But the amount of duty alone, 
let the per centage of it to the consumers be 
what it may, proves an immense demand 
above the present home-grown supply, and is 
ample evidence that no extraneous importance 
is attached to the subject. 

Various reports have been made to par- 
liament of large tracts of waste land ; indeed, 
some have gone so far as to state, certain 
parts might be beneficially planted with trees." 
There are also extensive tracts of crown 
lands, which would grow " the common JBritish 
oak;' and why should not a revenue be ob- 
tained by growing it, as well as by a duty on 
the importation of the sessiliflora and Turkish 
species, which, if used in the construction of 
ships of war of the largest class, is (according 
to Mr. Symonds's evidence) hardly worth 
the labor, therefore dear at the cost of the 
freight. Let the Admiralty look at the 



GROWING GOLD. 129 

report of its officers before the committee on 
shipwrecks. It ought to have demanded 
the attention of the commissioners of woods 
and forests to the subject, as it is of such 
vital importance to the royal navy ; but it is 
in every way entitled to the attention of the 
House of Commons. A report has indeed 
been made that there are fifteen millions of 
acres of waste land in the united kingdom ; if 
only one thirtieth part thereof was applied to 
the cultivation of timber, the produce, if all 
sold at the present price of timber, would 
eventually realize a sum exceeding the na- 
tional debt. If five thousand acres were 
planted annually, for a century, at the end 
of that time there would be five hundred 
thousand acres. The cutting might then 
commence on those first planted. Taking 
only two hundred trees per acre, at ten 
pounds each, a revenue of ten million pounds 
per annum, for a century, would be obtained. 
It is clear that a large revenue might be 
derived from this source. The whole amount 
now drawn from the pockets of the consumers 



130 



GROWING GOLD. 



of the immense quantity of foreign timber 
which is now imported, might be had as a 
direct revenue to Government, and the con- 
sumer would be benefited by the superiority 
of the article over that which they can obtain 
from any other part of the world. 

Government is already a large grower of 
timber, and has a host of commissioners, 
surveyors, inspectors, keepers, &c. therefore 
it would be only to extend its plans and 
to make the service of these gentlemen useful 
to the public. If it is the pleasure of land- 
owners to buy and grow timber of bad quality, 
there is nothing to prevent their doing so, but 
Government is differently situated ; it is bound 
to do the best for the community; and it 
appears to be the interest of the nation, that 
a supply of timber should be grown to render 
it in this respect independent of the Colonies 
and the owners of foreign soils. 

One great advantage is, that the sinking 
fund system does not at the present rate of 



GROWING GOLD. 



131 



interest accumulate capital at so great a rate 
as that of growing oak timber. The original 
deposit, namely, the expenses of planting, 
the rent as it accrues, the rates and taxes, 
and a trifling charge for superintendence, 
would amount, at the end of the term, to so 
small a sum, even at compound interest, that 
it would be scarcely entitled to attention. 
Every acre of waste land, therefore, under 
the control of Government, ought to be planted 
in the best manner, and on no pretence 
whatever should pines be planted in the 
neighbourhood of Windsor ! ! 

There is a long list of forests, woods, 
parks, &c. the whole or parts of which are 
under the control of the commissioners of the 
office of woods and forests ; therefore, if a 
proper method be practised, the period can 
be mentioned when Government will cease to 
be a purchaser of foreign timber. But few of 
these places are known to the author : of 
those that are, skill only is requisite to grow 
large quantities of good timber. Epping 



132 



GROWING GOLD. 



Forest is one of the number, and if a part 
could be appropriated to the purpose, a 
valuable crop of oak could be grown ; but the 
arrangements must be different from those on 
estates which limit it. 

As the nation possesses tracts of waste 
land so extensive, it would most assuredly 
be safer to cultivate timber for sale, than to 
rely upon a revenue from the importation of 
foreign timber, which is at all times liable to 
a partial or even a total suspension. 

With respect to sowing acorns, there is no 
doubt of its being done advantageously ; but all 
such sowings require a vigilant and an acute 
superintendent. In the Transactions of the 
Royal Society, there are some valuable papers 
on this part of the subject, which were written 
by an illustrious and very clever lady. 

It is important that timber should be 
grown upon the banks of all the great rivers, 
particularly the Thames, as the trifling charge 



GROWING GOLD. 133 

of carriage to the water, and merely floating 
it down the stream, would be nominal com- 
pared with the charges for carriage, &c. of 
that from Canada. The best price could be 
obtained in the London markets, and along 
the banks of the river, for all kinds of beams, 
planks, ship boat knees and crooks, fire 
wood, &c. 

The value of timber in Evelyn's time has 
not been ascertained, but from the great 
quantity then growing and the limited con- 
sumption in comparison to that of the present 
day, it probably was much less than at this 
moment. Owners of large estates would do 
well to ask themselves whether they have 
one hundred thousand pounds or even thirty 
thousand pounds worth fit for sale, or a pros- 
pect of realizing such a sum at a given period. 
To heirs of estates, the judicious management 
of timber is of the greatest importance, as it 
is much more to their advantage to pay off 
incumbrances by the sale of it, than by mort- 
gaging the land : indeed, a liberal provision 



134 GROWING GOLD. 

for the younger branches of families may be 
thus obtained, by a trifling deposit, without 
risk. 

The actual importance of this subject can- 
not be thoroughly understood without the 
charges against it being stated, and the 
amount of the accumulation of the clear profit 
being fully shown ; these are given in round 
numbers, but always so as to reduce the 
amount of the profit. 

If the trees be not thinned, but allowed 
to overgrow each other, the underlings might 
decay and die, but this would be compensated 
by the increasing size and value of those that 
remain. They might not stand quite so 
regular as if thinned, but the rate of growth 
would probably exceed that of the trees in 
those plantations where there had been con- 
tinual intermeddling : of course there will be 
no profit from the thinnings. 



GROWING GOLD. 



135 



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136 GROWING GOLD. 

The rent of the old woods, in the foregoing 
calculation, is stated at tweijty shillings per 
acre, as they are now paying that sum by the 
sale of the underwood, subject to the deduc- 
tions for rates, &c. the land in many cases 
would not produce more rent if let for agri- 
cultural purposes. The waste land, which 
might now be planted, is not, with very few 
exceptions, worth so much, therefore it is a 
fair average. 

The one-sixth of the rent, charged for 
parochial rates, land tax, &c. is nearly what 
it amounts to generally. 

The charge for trenching the land, plants, 
and planting, is very high. Some land can 
be shown which was planted three times, 
by an economic w^ood agent, without getting 
a crop to grow ; land that is hard, rooted, 
and stony, will very often grow good timber, 
if it is properly managed. Nothing pays 
better for good management than timber. 



GROWING GOLD. 137 

Expenses of planting an acre. 
Trenching 160 rods, at 8d. per rod, 5 6 8 



1 



8 15 0 



Seven thousand oak plants, at 
25s. per 1000, 

Planting same with great care,"^ 
and looking over the plants the first V 0 18 
two years, filling up vacancies, &c.3 



£.15 0 0 



All vegetable productions have their ap- 
pointed time of maturity, but from the dis- 
parity of the circumference of oak trees of 
the same age, size cannot be taken as a guide 
to determine when they cease to increase in 
value ; this depends on so many circum- 
stances, that the appearance of the trees can 
alone be depended upon. The practice of 
thinning large trees being destructive to those 
which are allowed to remain, and as planting 
young trees amongst old ones cannot be the 
most economic method of growing timber, al- 
though it is practised * by the officers of the 

* Between Windsor Park gate and Ascot race course. 



138 



GROWING GOLD. 



woods and forest department, it follows that 
the most advantageous system is to clear and 
replant the land. There is a notion amongst 
those who have no practical knowledge, and 
among certain pretenders to it, that young 
trees will not grow well upon old woodlands : 
the examination of almost any land occupied 
by ancient trees will prove this to be erroneous. 

The losses owners submit to by allowing 
old trees to stand that have ceased to grow, 
is at least four fold ; their decay, the interest 
and compound interest of the sum to be 
realized by the sale of them, and the growth 
of those which might be planted on the land ; 
at the expiration of twenty years, the accu- 
mulation of property, by such arrangements, 
would be important. On every estate there 
should be a succession of timber, some planted 
and some of a marketable size, the quantity 
according to the size of the estate. Thus, the 
annual home consumption might be provided 
for, and the surplus sold. To establish this 
system with the least injury to the existing 



GROWING GOLD. 139 

crop, requires a perfect knowledge of the 
subject, and an examination of all the woods 
and plantations on the property ; some to be 
cut down and the land applied to agricultural 
purposes, others to be enlarged ; in others, 
fast growing trees to be planted, to shelter 
those which are to be kept in store. Experi- 
ments of various kinds have been observed, 
but, with one exception, they must be ranked 
as complete failures ; indeed, so ill conceived 
were they, there could be no other result. 
In the successful instance, some good speci- 
mens of trees were observed growing on boggy 
soils, which had been tapped" by the owner, 
according to a clever and effectual process : 
this gentleman is particularly skilful in 
draining land ; his is practical knowledge, 
having farmed his own estate for more than 
thirty years. 

If underwood be required, it will be more 
profitable to grow it unmixed with any kind 
of large trees, and each species by itself, as 
ash, hazel, oak thorns, &c. 



140 



GROWING GOLD. 



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GROWING GOLD. 



141 



A statement showing the clear value of 
five hundred acres of oak trees after the first 
thinning, if left to grow to the average of 
forty-five feet per tree, or worth eight pounds 
each, which w411 be at the end of seventy-five 
years. 



The produce of second thinning,' 
at the end of 50 years, to make the 
crop stand from 5ft. to 10ft. apart, 
cut 1300 trees per acre, at 5 shil- 
lings each, bark and top included, 
leaving 400 trees per acre, 

To produce of the crop standing" 
10 feet apart at the end of 75 years, 
400 trees per acre, of 45ft. in each, 
at 3 shillings and 6 pence per foot, 
and 2 shillings and 6 pence each 
for top and bark, or £.8 each. 



y 162,500 



600,000 



£.1,762,500 



The annual interest thereon, at four per 
cent, is seventy thousand five hundred pounds. 



The opinion arising from a careful exami- 
nation of all the evidence during this inquiry, 



142 GROWING GOLD. 

is, that oak trees will grow at a much greater 
rate according to this scale, than where fewer 
trees per acre are originally planted. 

The question as to the average size of oak 
trees, at the end of seventy-five years, entirely 
rests upon the evidence in pages 107 and 8 ; 
there can be no doubt it is much more than 
forty-five feet. 

One-fifth of Richmond Park (five hundred 
acres) is now covered with weeds, rushes, 
fern bushes, &c. the portion principally con- 
sists of obscure corners, which are in no way 
necessary to the scenery nor useful for gra- 
zing, but which would grow a good crop of 
valuable timber under good management. 
Those described in page 84, originally set at 
three feet apart, to be taken as a data. 



GROWING GOLD. 



143 



The trees of 25 years' growth, set 
3ft. apart, 4840 trees, or one tree 
on the centre of every square yard, f 45,000 
cut 3600 per acre, or every other 
tree, at 6 pience each, 

The trees of 50 years' growth 
(that of 45 years' growth, in Rich- 
mond Park, taken as the data, 
page 67) to make the crop stand y 112,500 
from 6ft. to 12ft. cut every other 
tree, 900 per acre, at 5 shillings 
each, top and bark included, 

The remaining crop of 302 trees- 
per acre, at the end of 75 years 
(or before, see page 108) the tree M,208,000 
in page 84 furnishing the data, at 
£.8 per tree, or £.2416 per acre, 



£.1,365,500 



The main point of this question may be 
summed up in a very few words, namely, 
the space necessary for an oak tree to grow 
to maturity. It has been proved, that in the 
ancient forests in England, in the fir forests 
of the north of Europe, and in the back woods 



144 GROWING GOLD. 

of America, the trees grow close together ; 
therefore, they occupy but few square feet 
each. At Windsor Castle and Hampton 
Court there are large orange trees, each of 
which occupies a box of a square yard of 
surface, and eighteen or twenty-four inches 
deep. The few inches of mould necessary 
for the rapid growth and flowering of the 
geraniums and other hot-house plants, are 
also inconsiderable to the quantity of wood, 
leaves, &c. they make ; indeed, the quantity 
of vegetable food absorbed from the ground 
by a succession of good crops of wheat or 
other grain annually, far exceeds the quantity 
required to mature a crop of oak trees : it is 
certain, the largest trees require an increasing 
supply as long as they continue to thrive, but 
the trees they overgrow scarcely consume 
any. The deposit of dead leaves, &c. is 
commensurate, nay exceeds the quantity of 
vegetable food drawn from land by timber, 
so there is no instance of a crop dying from 
want of nourishment; but, on the contrary, 
the soil is improved by timber ; therefore, it 



GROWING GOLD. 



145 



proves that a less number of square feet of 
land is required for an oak tree to grow to 
maturity than managers of woods and plan- 
tations appear to think necessary. 

Although the Government and the land- 
owners generally, do not solicit advice oii this 
subject, and some may perhaps receive it 
with ill grace, it is no less the duty of him 
who possesses information which may be 
valuable, to publish it for the general good. 
That it has been a source of wealth to have 
an estate covered with good timber cannot be 
denied ; that it is essential to the existence of 
the empire is equally true ; and, that it must 
be advantageous to it to be independent of 
foreign states, there can be little, if any doubt ; 
at any rate, to possess it will be erring on the 
safe side. The quantity of manufactured 
goods sent in exchange for it is too trifling to 
be for a moment a matter of consideration. 

Should a committee of the House of 
Commons proceed with an inquiry upon this 



146 



GROWING GOLD. 



subject, no doubt evidence will be offered to 
prove that the rate of growth of oak trees is 
not exaggerated, therefore the profits of its 
cultivation are not exceeded in the foregoing 
calculations. 

It is an extraordinary circumstance that 
an inquiry of this kind has not been made 
by the office of woods and forests, and pub- 
lished for the information of the public, as 
the most accurate statements of the age of 
growing oak trees could be produced by it. 
This humble attempt to supply the deficiency 
is given regardless of the contemptuous refusal 
of information from many private sources. 

It is deeply lamented that better speci- 
mens of oak trees of a more advanced growth 
have not been obtained to ground further 
calculations upon : many others have been 
seen, but there is reason to suspect the 
accuracy of the statements of the age of many 
of them. Enough, however, is given to prove, 
beyond a doubt, that very large profits are 



GROWING GOLD. 147 

to be obtained by growing the common 
British oak. 

The suggestions of the importance of this 
subject will perhaps cause landowners to as- 
certain the age of the fastest groiving trees 
on their estates ; these will corroborate the 
opinions here given. 

There are very few estates which have 
not some proof of the suitableness of the soil 
for the growth of oak to perfection ; some 
have been observed growing on blowing sands, 
which were remarkably healthy. Every seller 
of shipping appears by his advertisements to 
be glad to avail himself of the words ''built 
OF BRITISH OAK." A fasliiou lias prevailed 
of collecting old oak furniture, the dates on 
much of it are carved ; I am now sitting on a 
chair that once was part of the then modern 
furniture of Kirtling Hall ; this was the resi- 
dence of the Lord North who was one of the 
executors of Henry VIH. and who was visited 
by Queen Elizabeth, before she came to the 



148 GROWING GOLD. 

throne ; this chair probably stood on the 
dais * at the time ; it is as sound as on the day 
it was made ; it is fastened together by pegs, 
and there is not a nail in it. Expensive 
modern furniture has been made of oak. 
Old buildings, in which oak forms a part, 
shows its durability for this purpose. The 
ancient boat, cut out of a solid piece, now 
deposited in the British Museum, and which 
had been imbedded in the earth for many 
centuries, proclaims the suitableness of the 
common British oak timber for every im- 
portant purpose required by man. Heedless 
of these incontestible facts, presumptuous and 
avaricious men have been, and still are, 
searching for something new, to impose on a 
credulous public. i 

The nurseries and plantations on many 
estates contain so many kinds of trees which 
produce bad timber, one would almost fancy 
the persons who have the selections have no 
other desire than to find out and propagate 

* See Ivanhoe, First Part of Vol. I,— The Hall of the Saxons. 



GROWING GOLD. 149 

the worst : they treat the produce of the 
acorn as contemptuously as if the timber was 
of questionable utility ; appear to 

" Ask of their mother earth, why oaks are made." 

This is the result of their ignorance of the 
method by which it can be grown to per- 
fection. In the beauty of its appearance 
it equals, if it does not surpass, all that has 
been hitherto introduced. Its nature is suited 
to the climate, as is its timber to the insular 
situation of this kingdom ; in proof of which, 
it was provided for our ancestors in abun- 
dance, by an all-wise, kind, and bountiful 
Providence. 

Thus, I have endeavoured to show how 
oak timber has been, and can be grown ; 
the demand for it, and there is sufficient 
w^aste land to grow all the nation does or 
may require; and that the revenue may be 
increased by its growth. Let us then benefit 
ourselves by the means ; resting assured that 
if Great Britain should be relieved from her 



150 



GROWING GOLD. 



debt, it will be by availing ourselves of the 
assistance of the Bountiful Creator of all 
things — who, out of valueless matter, forms 
materials, which are to a virtuous and an 
industrious people more excellent than re- 
fined gold. 



THE END. 



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